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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719028">a buried and burning flame</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundaymarkets/pseuds/sundaymarkets'>sundaymarkets</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, a dash of ralicia??, a healthy dose of slowburn, geneva convention puns, paper cranes as love declarations</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:55:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>60,291</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719028</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundaymarkets/pseuds/sundaymarkets</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost three years ago, Sergio Marquina stole a billion euros and the blindfold that had shielded Raquel's eyes to the injustices she'd always known existed within the system. After Raquel managed to glue together the fragments of her former life with a new career and a new therapist, the slow process of moving on began. Then, two red paper cranes, an awkward meeting with an old friend, and a jarring phone call shattered all of the progress she had made. The next thing she knew, Raquel was one of the lead negotiators of a robbery at the Banco de España committed by assailants in familiar red jumpsuits and Dali masks.</p><p>Again.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Raquel Murillo/Professor | Sergio Marquina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>162</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>316</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. i. prologue: trying to hope with nothing to hold</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello friends! I've had this idea kicking around in my head for a while now, and after quietly appreciating so many of your works on here in the past few months since I discovered LCDP, I am so excited to finally contribute to the fandom! I haven't written much outside of RP in years, so the prologue is more of an internal reflection on Raquel's life to give context about what's been going on since the bank heist because that's what I'm used to writing. The action/plot should begin in the first proper chapter.</p><p>Thanks for clicking, and I'd love to hear your thoughts! 💕</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Madrid, six months after the heist</b>
</p><p> </p><p>For the first time since she first walked into a Madrid police precinct over twenty years ago, it was Raquel Murillo’s first day at work.</p><p>Her career in the police force and a lifetime of beliefs evaporated in the same moments the Professor and his gang vanished from the grid. After the heist, Raquel was unable to stomach her role in the system with indifference to the cutthroat, patriarchal environment, or to the injustice at its roots. The opportunity to resign quietly fell into her lap like a gift wrapped neatly with a bow, allowing her a way out without so much as a word uttered to the presses, who were famished for any comment from the tight-lipped Inspectora. </p><p>The quiet resignation salvaged her reputation enough to land her a position elsewhere in the criminal justice system. In a small office tucked away in the corner of the bureaucratic wing of the Alcalá-Meco prison, Raquel sat behind a barren desk that felt much too large for her. Far from the bustling police precincts where <em> quiet </em> could only ever be hoped for in rare bathroom breaks, the silence of her private office was deafening. Almost unsettling. </p><p>Raquel brushed that assessment off as nerves and focused on brightening up her surroundings. She assembled the few personal belongings she’d thought to bring along for her first day: a photo of herself, Marivi, and Paula, taken on one of her mother’s more lucid days; a drawing of Paula as a princess her daughter made last week at school; an array of pencils and pens that would inevitably fasten her bun eventually. This would have to do for now.</p><p>Next to the pens sat a folder for her first case for the day, a fifty-year-old woman arrested on drug charges set to be released in a few weeks. The woman had no family save a twenty-year-old daughter who had been removed from her custody as a child, no job to return to and felony charges that could make locating a new one difficult. And it was her task to ease the woman’s reintegration into society.</p><p>At first she disliked her new position being related to the criminal justice system at all, but that was exactly why Raquel made the transition from the other side of the law to this. Maybe instead of dehumanizing criminals from the moment they were arrested - not that Raquel had ever done so anyway, or so she liked to think - they just needed a gentle push of encouragement. Someone to have faith in them. And while she wasn't naive enough to think that kind words would solve all ills, it was a start. Nor would all criminals leave model lives once leaving prison, but her mind kept circling back to a certain criminal who she'd catalogued as a psychopath, who was a far cry from the label assigned to him based on the image the <em> Professor </em> persona conveyed. (The familiar twinge of pain shot through her heart, as it often did whenever her mind invariably returned to him.)</p><p>Sergio was right to point out the flaws in the criminal justice system. The line between the good guys and the bad guys never was easily decipherable, but maybe she could spin the pain of that week of memories around and make that line a little clearer. One ounce of good within the system wouldn't erase all the evils, but she could try.</p><p>The woman drew in a breath. As she flipped open the file, a sharp knock on the door announced the arrival of her first case. Raquel lifted a pen to fasten her hair into its trademark bun, reaching for another to take notes and straightening up in her seat. “Come in!” <em> Here we go. </em></p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>One year after the heist</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes, it was difficult to imagine that more than a week passed since the heist on the Royal Mint of Spain unraveled her career and a lifetime of beliefs - especially when she could still sometimes feel the ghost of the lips of the man in charge on her own as they kissed fervently inside the dingy hangar that served as a control center for the heist operations.</p><p>Perhaps for lack of anything else to sensationalize in the moment, the international news media seized the opportunity to unearth memories of the heist as the first anniversary of the assault came around. Raquel’s throat felt dry as she saw her own image on a newscast despite the spoonfuls of ice cream that slid down. </p><p>It almost felt childish to sit on her bed with a pint of chocolate ice cream while regretting the end of a relationship that had barely gone anywhere. Raquel had started going to therapy in the past few months, which had helped her get past some of the darker demons from that period of time. So had it helped her mend from the trauma of her abusive marriage that a series of nightmares about the heist reawakened. Recovery was a slow, grueling process, but it was one that helped her regain control of her life, along with the routine of a new job doing work more rewarding than she’d imagined.</p><p>Still, no amount of advice or coping mechanisms could make her fall out of love. That was a difficult conclusion she reached when the satisfaction of rebuilding her life gave way to the emotions simmering underneath, ones that held less power over her now but nonetheless served as a nagging reminder of her ability always to fall for the wrong person.</p><p>That was what felt the most childish of it all - that her heart was unrelenting in its affection for a man she knew for five days amongst forty years, despite knowing his true identity for less than a day.</p><p>At first, Raquel argued she felt nothing but rage toward Sergio Marquina. Unswayed by the reddened face and impassioned tangents the thought of him sent her down, her therapist called her out on the spot, cautioning her against rejecting her true feelings. Pushing off the emotions was a futile cause that only shoved them deeper rather than made them disappear. Sure enough, they resurfaced again and again, like one of Paula’s toys that refused to remain under water in the bathtub for long. Raquel loved him, and a year apart wasn’t enough to dismantle those feelings, even after he’d disappeared without a trace and without a way of seeing him again. </p><p>The only souvenir left from the heist was a stack of postcards tucked away on a bookshelf in the corner of her living room, but the reminder of them had been too difficult to stomach. One of the more irritating bits of advice from her therapist echoed in her mind: the longer she avoided her feelings, the more the resentment surrounding them would grow. </p><p>Hesitantly, she rose from her bed before the grips of fear glued her in place. Before she reached the bookshelf, the sweet melody of Paula’s voice filtered in from the kitchen table. </p><p>“Mama! Look what Abuela and I drew for you!”</p><p>Raquel smiled, and her course diverted toward the kitchen. All thoughts of the task at hand vanished the moment her mother and daughter’s shining faces greeted her own. Pulled into a swath of coloring pages and half-finished drawings of unicorns and puppies and, finally, the three of them, she couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her afternoon anywhere but swimming in a sea of crayons with her two favorite people in the world. They were the only bandage that she needed to heal.</p><p>The postcards Sergio gave her in the cafe during the last few moments they shared of blissful ignorance, when running away to an island in the Caribbean was a possibility and not just a foolish fantasy, were left on the bookshelf to collect more layers of dust.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>One and a half years after the heist</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Raquel had a date.</p><p>A year and a half earlier, she would have laughed in her face if you told her that her first Friday night off in weeks would be spent at a mediocre Italian restaurant in the centre of Madrid with a man she suspected was just as mediocre. A year and a half earlier she <em> also </em> would have laughed in your face if you told her she’d end up falling in love with the most wanted man in Spain who led the same heist she was negotiating - and, well, look how that turned out.</p><p>She owed Santiago some credit. A widower and father of two girls, one of whom was in the same class as Paula at school, he had a certain charm that made Paula take a liking to him enough to tell him upfront that her mother would make a good replacement for his wife. And he’d been so polite when, four months after she rejected him the first time he’d asked following Paula’s not-so-sly attempt to set them up, she finally decided to take the leap. It wasn’t her idea - her therapist suggested she <em> make new connections </em> after session after session of spiraling down the same paths, many involving the same man her conscience refused to let go of - but maybe it would do her some good. The overwhelming feeling of nausea at the thought of connecting with anyone on that level had disappeared for the first time in several months, at least.</p><p>‘Some credit’, however, ended up being her only justification for the date. Like the pasta on their plates within moments of it appearing on the table, the conversation was tepid, managing to focus on their children rather than revealing any details that would get the other to know them better. And that was fine. </p><p>If anything, it confirmed a thought Raquel circled back to on more than one occasion during her therapy sessions: that a man she knew for five days during the case that destroyed a career of twenty years somehow became a benchmark for all of her other connections, and sometimes it felt that would never change. From the moment Santiago appeared in her front doorway, the comparisons to Salva - <em> Sergio </em> - had begun. How his suit didn’t fit him quite as well, how his square glasses felt just slightly <em> off </em>, how he seemed just as kind as the Salva persona but how he didn’t have that same quick wit that challenged and intrigued her.</p><p>The date ended with a chaste kiss to her cheek and a half-hearted promise to go for dinner again that both of them knew would remain unfulfilled. Raquel stepped through the doorway eager to let the vestiges of sleep claim her, but decided to duck into Paula’s room to check on her first. In the dim light from the hallway that shone into her daughter’s bedroom, she only saw the light illuminate her daughter’s sleeping figure at first. The sight never failed to bring a smile to her lips. </p><p>Raquel planted a soft kiss on Paula’s forehead and drew back. Turning away to leave the room, she stopped dead in her tracks instead. A red origami paper crane sat amongst her daughter’s school materials that she didn’t remember seeing before her date. She blinked as if the crane were a figment of her imagination that would disappear after a moment, but it materialized once more as her eyes opened. A tentative hand reached out toward it, still unsure if it were tangible. Her breath hitched as her fingers met paper, and a feeling of dread washed over her.</p><p>Certainly, there was no way this crane was connected to Sergio - it was probably just a craft from Paula’s class that day - but it was another damn sign in the universe pulling her toward the ghost of an impossible memory.</p><p>It was on nights like that, when every sign in the universe drew her attention back to him, that she found herself wishing futilely for any sign that would point her toward Sergio now. He’d left scars on the hostages, the Spanish police and intelligence, <em> herself </em> - but that seemed to be all that he left behind. Not a single indication or hint how to contact him despite having billions of euros to orchestrate something, anything. To think that this crane could be linked to him was nothing more than a childish fantasy. She owed herself more.</p><p>This sort of train of thoughts was dangerous, too. Pining over a man she barely knew in the grand scheme of things, whose attraction to her had only ever harmed them both was unhealthy. (Accepting her feelings and <em> pining </em> were two different things, she maintained; the latter was toxic.) </p><p>He claimed to love her - and maybe he did - but Sergio had been impeccably clear when he said he was screwed even if she didn’t turn him in because they could never see each other again. Continuing whatever they had during that week was out of the question, and Raquel needed to drill that into her head.</p><p>In her most desperate moments, Raquel entertained thoughts of purchasing one-way plane tickets to any of the islands they talked about escaping to and searching under every rock for him. Only that was just the sort of ridiculous romanticization of their affair that had to stop. The way that a wave of nausea overtook her as she slinked into bed without bothering to unzip her dress, the way that every aspect of her date reminded her of him and that damned <em> crane </em> only seemed to taunt her - all of it did no good for her, and at some point, it had to stop.</p><p>Raquel owed it to herself - and to the ideal of Sergio she’d cultivated in her mind who was probably nothing like the real man - to move on. </p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Two years after the heist</b>
</p><p> </p><p>As it turned out, moving on was easier said than done.</p><p>But, slowly, Raquel was managing.</p><p>There wasn’t a second date with Santiago, but she didn’t mind. Realizing her attraction to him was only surface level was a step in the right direction, even if the destination was still unknown. <em> Moving on </em>, for now, meant accepting the current impossibility of getting rid of her feelings and accepting them as they were. It meant letting herself heal from the pain instead of dwelling on how his (expected) silence hurt her.</p><p>The second anniversary of the start of the heist passed with much less fanfare than the first. The media still milked it for what it was worth - naturally - and she couldn’t turn on the television that day without hearing one analyst or another speculate about where the assailants were now. <em> Wouldn’t that be nice to know, </em> Raquel thought to herself as she stirred the batter for Paula’s favorite breakfast, glancing at the television in the living room from her place in the kitchen.</p><p>
  <em> “Mr. Roman, you’ve spoken at length about your experience with the gang, which now may include your ex-secretary, Monica Gaztambide, who disappeared with the rest of them. I take it you haven’t been in contact with her in the past two years?” </em>
</p><p><em> “No. No, not at all.” </em> Raquel stirred the batter with a little more force as the familiar voice grated in her ears when his face flashed across the television. She’d never forgotten the look on his wife’s face when he accidentally referred to her as his lover before the surgery to remove the bullet to his chest. It almost made her glad he was the hostage they’d shot. <em> Almost </em> . The memoir and ridiculous speaking engagements that followed weren’t worth it. <em> “You know, I guess running off with a band of terrorists makes you too busy to write, doesn’t it?”  </em></p><p>The other correspondents did not find the joke as funny as Roman seemed to.</p><p>
  <em> “So you have no idea in the world where they could have gone? Where Monica may have wanted to go?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I mean, you can go anywhere in the world if you seize the mint and print yourself up a billion euros. Hopefully they didn’t end up in some backward third world country like Indonesia where there probably wasn’t even a hospital to birth our son in, am I right?” </em>
</p><p>“Seriously?!” Raquel’s shock drowned out the grinding laughter emerging from the television. A thick silence onscreen stilled the house save for her furious steps toward the living room in search of the remote with the batter bowl still cradled against her hip. The last image on the screen before it went black was the other analysts’ faces, which were equally as horrified as her own.</p><p>Unlike Roman, she had zero desire in profiting from the celebrity that came with involvement in the heist. Hell, Raquel had received a number of invitations to participate in similar panels herself, but each one remained unopened in her email inbox. In fact, she despised the holes into which speculation dragged half the Spanish population for the second year in a row; Raquel had spent enough time lamenting over the radio silence from the gang, and she certainly didn’t want to spend her Sunday morning reopening the wounds that felt like they’d only just healed. </p><p>“You’re making pancakes!”</p><p>Somewhere on her journey from the kitchen to the living room, a still sleepy Paula had emerged from her bedroom. The realization of the bowl against her mother’s hip was the burst of energy the girl needed to wake up, and the bright grin stretching across her face was infectious. Raquel grinned back at her daughter and crossed the short space between them to plant a kiss on her forehead. “I am! Do you want to help me?” </p><p>Paula nodded. “Can we add chocolate chips?”</p><p>“Of course. Come on.” Linking the girl’s hand in her own, they entered the kitchen to add a mountain - if Paula got her way - of chocolate chips into the pancake batter.</p><p>Two years ago, the man she loved disappeared and had never reached her again. But preparing breakfast with the most important person in her life, sliding around the floor in the slippers they wore and giggling loudly as they did, made her forget all about the man at the focus of all of the discussions on television today. Heart full and eyes shining with affection for her daughter, Raquel felt lighter than she had in years.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Two and a half years after the heist,</b>
</p><p><b>Six weeks before </b> <b> <em>Hora Cero</em> </b></p><p> </p><p>There was something odd about the message Angel sent Raquel that she couldn’t place. Nothing about the message itself was immediately strange: <em> Hey, Raquel. It’s been a while. Can we talk? </em> Yet the way he posed the final question set off alarms in her head that something was off, and her investigative instincts kicked in even as she typed an agreement to meet for dinner that night.</p><p>(Raquel was filled with a brief dread that he thought this would be a date, as it was their first official reconnection since Mari Carmen left him. She only hoped her years of fending off his advances had been clear, else they might need to invent a clearer material than crystal, or at the very least upgrade his glasses prescription.)</p><p>“Why are we here, Angel?” Raquel’s first question came out as more of an accusation thrown at her friend with a pointed look as she found the booth her friend already occupied in the Hanoi cafe near the mint. The cafe was casual enough to avoid a romantic atmosphere that suggested a date, yet it was also the location of her first date in years. With Sergio, no less. Entering the cafe had been like thrusting her head into an icy pool of water, jolting awake all of the memories of the moments spent in here that had remained dormant. Whether the location choice was by design or another casualty of Angel’s tendency to ignore reality when it came to her, she wasn’t sure.</p><p>His brow furrowed, and he seemed confused. So the latter. “I thought you’d like somewhere familiar. Easy.”</p><p>The memories associated with Hanoi weren’t <em> easy </em>, especially as they sat at the exact same booth as her first date with Sergio by unfortunate coincidence. And the cafe sure as hell wasn’t familiar, at least not anymore. Raquel had no reason to visit Hanoi in the past few years, and the memories unearthed after a few moments of entering reminded her why she hadn’t gone out of her way to do so. </p><p>She owed him the effort of response, because behind his blunder of a restaurant choice was a thoughtful gesture she was confident he made in the best of intentions. Raquel struggled what to say for a moment, mouth hanging open while no words emerged.</p><p>Angel picked up on her look of disbelief, or perhaps he was just tired of the silence. “How-- how are you, Raquel?”</p><p><em> You couldn’t have asked six months ago? A year ago? </em>she wanted to say, but instead Raquel gave a weak smile as she exhaled. “Good. And yourself?”</p><p>The plan was dinner, but Raquel suddenly didn’t feel hungry when the waiter approached for their orders. She asked for a cider first, frowned, then changed to a whiskey.</p><p>“I’ve been better.” Angel laughed, and silence quickly descended between the distant pair of friends again. Raquel was half tempted to make an escape and break open the bottle of red wine in her fridge instead. For better or worse, Angel didn’t let the silence last long. “Been a while since you’ve been here, right? I don’t find much reason to come to this corner of Madrid these days.”</p><p>“Almost three years.” </p><p>For a moment, she could see the gears turning in his head as he struggled to do the math. Then, with eyes slightly wide as it dawned on him, “Oh.”</p><p>He realized she hadn’t been here since the heist, then. Good. The waiter returning with their drinks was a savior slicing through the uncomfortable air between them; she’d never been so grateful for a whiskey, even as it wasn’t her usual drink.</p><p>“There are places closer to my house, and too many memories here.” Raquel finally conceded, admitting only enough to prevent silence from enveloping them again.</p><p>“I understand.” Angel nodded. He paused, but the way his lips hovered open suggested he still had more to say. “And… have you heard anything since then? From him?”</p><p>Raquel frowned, crossing her arms to her chest as she stared him down with an apprehensive gaze. Whether this was bait to confirm her suspicions something had prompted his sudden invitation to dinner or an attempt to fill in the blanks of a friend’s life, she wasn’t sure. “Are you asking as a sub-inspector or as my friend, then?” Raquel was inclined to believe the former.</p><p>“Raquel--”</p><p>“Because as my friend, you should have been concerned about this two and a half years ago when I was at my lowest.” Instead, she’d left her career at the police, and they grew apart. </p><p>Angel let out a sharp breath and refused to meet her gaze. “I know. I’m sorry, Raquel, I really am. I didn’t realize you loved him that much.”</p><p>“Neither did I.” She laughed dryly. “But the feeling isn’t mutual.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“I haven’t heard from him.” She shrugged. “I know just as much as you do about where he is now.” It was the first time that she’d approached any of this outside of therapy - let alone mentioned Sergio. What should have felt freeing to mention instead weighed down on her chest, heartbeat picking up under the influence of that strange cocktail of anger and affection, as it often did whenever she thought about him for too long.</p><p>Something stirred in Angel’s eyes, and he shifted in his seat almost imperceptibly. To a former inspector’s keen eye that was on edge and alert for the slightest hair out of place, it was impossible to miss.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Raquel.” Again with the apologies that she didn’t want. Raquel brushed it off with a casual wave of her hand, downing the rest of the contents of her glass.</p><p>“Sorry enough to drop this and talk about something else?” Even unbearable silence was better than digging up the past she wanted to forget. Raquel smiled wearily to lighten the air. She <em> had </em> hoped that part of the evening would involve rekindling a friendship that had at one point been dear to her, and maybe it wasn’t too late for that.</p><p>“Of course.” His eyes stalled on her again for a moment, as if searching for something in her gaze. Raquel had no idea what he found, if anything, but she added the look to her catalogue of her suspicions surrounding the night.</p><p>The rest of the night passed in a blur that almost erased the uncomfortable silences and pointed questions of the first half, and it was easy to forget the growing expanse between them. By the time Raquel shut the door to her car outside her house and climbed the first few steps to her porch, she had managed to compartmentalize and store the memories dredged up inside Hanoi. In the same instant her eyes landed on a delicate origami paper crane in a strikingly familiar shade of red, all of that work unraveled. The woman let out a string of swears she hoped Paula was too far away from the door to hear. Then, she drew in a shaky breath.</p><p>First the crane found amid Paula’s school things she’d dismissed as a coincidence a year ago, and now this, on the same night Angel emerged out of nowhere to discuss the man her thoughts were immediately drawn to at the sight of the cranes. </p><p>Was Sergio back in Madrid? No, that was impossible. It was too risky, something only a fool would do, and Sergio was no fool.</p><p>(<em>Why </em>, then, were both of the cranes made with paper of the same shade of red as the jumpsuits the Dalis wore inside the mint?)</p><p>As she bent down to pick up the crane and brushed her thumb carefully across the sharp folds, Raquel was unable to dismiss the facts as pure coincidence. Two cranes and a dinner invitation to pry into a sort-of-ex - and while Raquel could dismiss Angel as jealous on a good day, his questions had felt more like a sub-inspector’s interrogation than a concerned friend’s attempt to reach out. Not to mention the way Angel squirmed in his seat when Raquel tried to turn the interrogation around on him.</p><p>The unsolved pieces of a puzzle left her mind reeling, but with another deep breath in, Raquel returned to her strategy of compartmentalizing. It wasn’t worth her energy to stress over an issue that couldn’t be solved tonight, though she knew that was easier said than done given how quickly her mind was racing.</p><p>For now, she focused on the present. Raquel entered the house, and she felt a smile creep across her lips that assuaged some of the tension building in her chest. The sight of Paula sound asleep on the couch while the last song of a Disney movie played in the background made her heart swell, shielding against any other worries that threatened to fight to the front of her conscience.</p><p>Before disrupting her daughter, Raquel made her way across the room to the bookshelf. Her smile faltered at the sight of the other paper crane, which sat on top of the postcards of all the islands they discussed moving to but never would. Untouched for two years, a thick layer of dust had settled over the top postcard: Palawan, of course, the one Sergio had chosen.</p><p>(It’s the first time she allowed another thought to surface, and this time, she didn’t fight it - whether <em> that </em> was where she should have started looking for him.)</p><p>Raquel fought the wave of nausea that rolled over her as she placed the paper crane in her hands next to the first. Perhaps the cranes were a subtle attempt by Sergio to contact her. More likely than not, though, it was just her mind looking for any sign to draw her back to an impossible love that she sometimes felt would never fully disappear.</p><p>Still, tears pricked at Raquel’s eyes as she swept Paula into her arms, careful not to wake her as she carried her to her bed and gently set her down underneath the covers. The little girl stirred, so Raquel was cautious as she lifted the blanket to cover her shoulders and bent down to place a soft kiss on her cheek.</p><p>As Raquel swung the door until it was almost shut, her mother emerged from the bathroom in her night robe. She flashed the older woman a teary smile she knew she would have to explain in the morning. And again. And again.</p><p>For now, all she wanted to do was close herself up in her room and sink into bed without thinking of <em> him </em>, or how different her life might be now if their last conversation in that bed were her current reality. </p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p><b>30 minutes after </b> <b> <em>Hora Cero</em> </b></p><p> </p><p>The frantic commentary of the news station the television had been left on was too low to hear while Raquel retrieved a pint of ice cream from the freezer. After a brief debate between chocolate and dulce de leche, she returned to the living room futilely trying to shove her spoon into the still-solid chocolate ice cream. Able to hear the reporters’ clear intrigue and frantic discussions from halfway across the room, she’d rolled her eyes at whatever captured the media attention and resolved to find something better to watch during her afternoon off.</p><p>Until she glanced up to see the storm of fifty-euro notes ravaging the centre of Madrid.</p><p>Raquel didn’t need to see the Dali masks on the side of the blimps raining paper on the city to know who was responsible. To realize that their leader was back in Europe, if not Spain. To endure the same bewilderment and fury that left her reeling less than three years ago when she’d solved the puzzle, had her heart broken, solved <em> another </em> puzzle, and kissed him senselessly.</p><p>And, just like three years ago, she was afforded few moments to process her thoughts. Her cell phone’s ringtone abruptly drowned out the chaos on her television, and Raquel swore as she read the caller ID. <em> Prieto. </em></p><p>“Raquel? We need you at the Banco de España.” </p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. ii. watching through my fingers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The gang enters the Bank of Spain, and Sergio reflects on the past three years.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hellooo, I am *finally* back with the first proper chapter! It’s a little longer than the first, so I hope it is worth the wait! I also want to say thank you so much for the kudos and lovely comments on the prologue (that I hope to be able to respond to soon); I’m excited to see that some of you are just as excited as I am about this story concept! </p><p>This took a while because I spent waaay too much time rewatching the show to get precise timing and order of events and relevant dialogue… The good news is I also spent hours fleshing out a plan that I may or may not stick to, so future updates will be more regular (hopefully at least once a week?).  I've even already started writing the next chapter. :')</p><p>Last note: I’m eventually compiling a playlist of songs, one to represent each chapter. This chapter’s song (and title) is Good Grief by Bastille.</p><p>Happy reading, and I’d love to hear your thoughts! 💕 (&amp; sorry if you're seeing this update twice - the fic wasn't showing on the tag so here's hoping a new attempt at uploading works?)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As the clock ticked down the seconds until his video would broadcast across the centre of Madrid, nerves were less forgiving to Sergio than during the moments before his group interrupted the delivery of note-printing paper on its path to the national mint. One successful heist under his belt counted for little — after all, success was subjective, given everything printing nearly a billion euros had cost.</p><p>The open-air house he moved into in the weeks following the heist was undeniably, hauntingly empty without Andres, who was meant to move with him after the escape. The chance that Raquel would remember the postcards and escape as they’d dreamt together made some of the emptiness tolerable, especially during the days he sat at the bar the coordinates would lead her to, waiting, <em> hoping. </em> </p><p>For a man who spent his childhood alone in a hospital bed with no one but his nurses for company, living in his personal tropical paradise should have been a dream. Instead, during days when loneliness manifested itself in a gnawing, gut-wrenching guilt while he sat alone with his thoughts, it was nothing short of a nightmare. Some days it <em> was </em> a nightmare, his dreams forcing him to reckon with causing the deaths of three of his team members, not being able to save his own brother, not trying harder to fit Raquel into their escape plan. Though Sergio often preferred solitude, the absence of the mismatched gang of robbers clattering around or shouting or causing childish problems at all hours of the night was surprisingly noticeable. He had grown — dare he say it — <em> fond </em>of them. </p><p>In the hours he spent at the bar nursing a single glass of red wine, always inevitably downing the other he ordered that went untouched, his intermittent periods of idealism and hope that she might find him were frequently punctuated by difficult days that slowly wore him down. Six months passed with no sign of Raquel, and he found himself picking apart every element of the plan in search of the weakest points. A year, and the optimism returned, only to be dashed as she still hadn’t come. A year and a half passed, and the sight of a different blueprint hidden amongst the few remaining files from the Mint plans shocked him into a present that managed to distract from the unsettling torrent of grief and longing inside him. </p><p>Perhaps it was the unbearable silence in his home on its secluded islet, perhaps it was to honor his brother or simply to grieve that Sergio broke one of the key rules established for their new lives by visiting Martin in Palermo. One day, the gears in his mind had turned and turned as they fixed on his new obsession, a resolve to mend the flaws in Andres and Martin’s plan to rob the Bank of Spain. Two weeks later, he stood in front of his brother’s friend’s apartment in full disguise.  </p><p>Ten seconds later, and Martin’s glare disappeared as he cackled at the sight of Sergio in a blond wig, shaved face, and a casual button-up and jeans.</p><p>Before he had time to consider the hint of bitterness in Martin’s laughter, the man was retreating into his home, leaving room for Sergio to enter. A vague discomfort was palpable in the air as he took a few cautious steps inside, and he wasn’t sure if it was a product of the weight of time and Andres’ death between them or if he was simply manifesting his own doubt at abandoning his safe haven in Palawan to visit a man who had every reason to resent him.</p><p>“The heist was amazing. I’m glad you’re alive.” </p><p>The room suddenly felt stifling despite the cool temperatures of March. “Gracias.” Sergio’s typical air of malaise was written all over his mildly pained expression. Frowning, he removed the blond wig. </p><p>“Of course, the rat that hides outside has the best chance of survival.”</p><p>And there it was. “I was the most exposed during the job—”</p><p>“No, don’t bullshit me. Whoever faces the most bullets is the most exposed, querido. How many times were you shot at?” </p><p>“I’m not here to argue.” </p><p>“Quite frankly, I couldn’t care less why you’re here. What, a year later? And here you are.”</p><p>No longer able to bear the tension in the air, Sergio cut off Martin before he could venture down his ramble. “You should. You should care.” He drew in a breath, lifting his fingers to shove his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I—”</p><p>“Andres wouldn’t have died if I had been there!” Speculating his brother’s survival only twisted the knot in his stomach tighter. “I would have gone back and gotten him out, no matter the cost!”</p><p>Martin made an excellent point, and Sergio remembered why he’d insisted on leaving the man out the first time. Personal relationships were too complicated, too messy during a heist; the cost of saving Andres would have been the lives and freedom of everyone else in the group. He had been right to insist on doing the plan without Martin, and the rippling effect of problems caused by Tokyo’s affection for Rio inside the Mint validated his original statement. Not to mention his own love that derailed the last days of the heist. Love and heists were incompatible.</p><p>If only he’d remembered that sooner. </p><p>“Look me in the eye… and tell me that the thought never occurred to you. That he’d sacrifice himself if needed. When coming up with your plan, hijo de puta, tell me you never considered your brother might die.”</p><p>The night before entering the Mint, Andres had made him promise to run if things went south, to leave him behind to save himself. <em> Sergio </em>had never envisioned Andres’ death as a possibility, but his brother’s intentions should have been clear from that moment. </p><p>Clarity in retrospect made reality no less easier to swallow, and he saw tears forming in Martin’s eyes through his own watery gaze. “I didn’t consider my brother's death.” It was true, even if he now realized he should have abandoned his idealistic view of reality for once to imagine what had always seemed so far out of the realm of possibilities to consider. This was their plan, of course Andres was getting out alive. “Not even once.” <em> Never. </em></p><p>Sergio had never been particularly adept at discussing emotions. He felt so ill-equipped to explain all he felt, despite the force of the grief that had pushed him to show up out of nowhere after several years today. </p><p>The next thing he knew, Martin pulled him into a tight embrace, and silent tears allowed Sergio to grieve his brother with the only person who understood his pain. </p><p>“I want to work on the bank heist,” he mumbled into the hug.</p><p>It was mad, and he hoped no time would come when <em> executing </em>the plan would be necessary, but he had been unable to abandon the parts of the plan or ignore the thrill that coursed through him ever since he spotted them tucked in the wrong folder. It was as if the forces of the universe collaborated to misplace something for him to find when he needed it most; Andres looking out for them from whatever afterlife existed. Since then, he hadn’t stopped searching for areas to improve it. Martin stared at him with the air of incredulity he knew he deserved as they broke apart.</p><p>“I can’t explain it, but—” Sergio pulled the rolled up blueprints and held them out to their original designer. “I <em> need </em>to perfect it. For Andres. It doesn’t have to be a suicide mission, and I’m certain there’s some key to an escape. We just haven’t found it yet.”</p><p>“You kicked me off of your plan to have your brother’s attention to yourself and have the nerve to come into my house and demand to finish <em> mine, </em>hijo de puta!”</p><p>Carefully, Sergio took a step back, allowing Martin’s anger to fill a larger distance between them. “Yours and Andres’.” His voice was quiet as he gave the reminder. “Martin…”</p><p>He hated this. Twisting his thumbs together did little to improve how uneasy he felt. Sergio had half a mind to accept that this would never work and leave before tensions escalated any further, but an inexplicable urge willed him to stay. “I thought that your… emotions would pose problems to the heist.” That was the short of it. Now was not a great time to accuse Martin of being an egomaniac with control issues as he’d argued to Andres.</p><p>Martin let out a dry laugh and looked as if he wanted to speak again, but Sergio cut in, “It was one of the first rules of the heist. No personal relationships. And Martin, relationships <em> did </em> pose <em> massive </em>challenges within the gang.” He spoke with urgency then, his volume rising as he paced in place, gesturing with his hands for emphasis — as if the confidence of the Professor returned the moment they opened the door to unleash memories of the heist. “When a ticking time bomb develops feelings for someone during a high stress operation when your survival is at risk at all hours of the day, it will eventually explode.” </p><p>“Don’t play games with me, Sergio. You and I both know I’m not some teenage girl incapable of handling her emotions.”</p><p>Sergio sighed. It often felt like Martin willfully ignored the points he made. “My point is that loving someone in the middle of a heist never ends well.” </p><p>“Of course you say that!” Taking another large step backward to avoid Martin’s growing rage, he stumbled into a record player rather clumsily. “You don’t know what it’s like to love anyone like I loved your brother!”</p><p>No, maybe Sergio hadn’t spent the same years pining after a man through five divorces, but he felt the same anguish at the loss of a woman who was, for all intents and purposes, dead to him forever. Anger mounted behind a cool exterior, and he wasn’t sure if it was directed at Martin’s not understanding or the world’s cruelty in forcing them away from those they loved. “Maybe not to that extent, or even that long, for that matter,” he conceded, flicking his glasses up again, “but I know now. I do. The time bomb exploding is only part of the destruction emotions had on the heist.” </p><p>He hesitated at the desire to unpack all he’d felt repeating the heist again and again in his mind during the last months, but he continued, as already it had begun to lift some of the pressure from his chest. Leaving his brother behind in the Mint would always weigh heavily on him, but he hadn’t been condemned to suffer from the rest of it forever. “I fell in love with the Inspector at the head of the negotiations. We talked about running away to Palawan together… and then she learned who I was. Not that it changed anything on my end.” It was impossible to resist a sheepish smile at the echo of Martin’s laughter through the room, a sound that dissolved some of the tension in the air.</p><p>There was also a blush that crept across his cheeks at the memory of their kiss in the last moments before she left his life forever, but Martin certainly didn’t need to know <em> all </em>of those details.</p><p><em> “Seriously, </em>hermano? Andres tries to get you to loosen up to the idea of love for years, and you fall in love with the woman who wants to lock you up?”</p><p>“Well, ah— she did. Sort of.”</p><p>Recounting the story again felt no less surreal than it had been to live it, to experience a joy in life he hadn’t known he was capable of feeling until Raquel Murillo stormed into his life and created the only fissure in his lifelong plan. </p><p>The tension between them continued to fade as Sergio explained every moment of his impossible connection with Raquel: his intense pull to protect her from the ex he hadn’t realized harmed her so deeply, the problems his absence in the hangar had caused when he spent the most incredible night of his life with her, the insane fantasy of escaping to an island with her family, the heartbreak when she discovered his true identity, and the impassioned kiss moments before she left the hangar that was still so vibrant in his mind when he closed his eyes. Finally, the risk in leaving coordinates to Palawan on the back of the postcards that she had ignored, or perhaps never seen. </p><p>It was Martin’s idea to reach out to Raquel again. Nearly every factor that might lead to her finding him in Palawan was a game of chance, starting with the probability of her never looking at the postcards again. A red paper crane could only eliminate some of that uncertainty if she unfolded it to read the message he’d written inside, but he had to try. An associate of Martin and Andres in Madrid delivered the crane, slipping in and out unnoticed one night while Raquel was out. </p><p>He preferred not to consider where she might be. </p><p>Somehow, opening up about Raquel created a sense of camaraderie between the two that had only ever seemed to be one-sided on Martin’s part before. After a few days of Martin prying into all the details of his incredibly brief experiences with love alternating with somber periods of reminiscing about Andres, Sergio finally dared bring up the Bank plans again. </p><p>He didn’t know why it was so important to him that they fix the plan, only that they did. A perfect plan that could increase the chances of their theoretical team escaping the Bank <em> alive </em> was their homage to Andres. And even if none of them would ever execute the plan, there was an indescribable rush in the hours spent examining the minutiae of a plan from every possible angle. He felt <em> useful </em>again.</p><p>Eventually, Sergio longed for his quiet escape in Palawan again and returned to the island, unable to shake the hope that her plane would follow soon when the crane sent a clearer message. For her, he was willing to forfeit solitude permanently if it meant the chance at another day together. </p><p>That day never came, and the impossibility of their reunion was a difficult truth to swallow, even if it was one he should have accepted from the moment they escaped from the Mint. </p><p>In the following months, Sergio did not spend all of his days alone or amongst strangers. Three times, Martin visited, and the large, open house felt a little less empty with the man whose energy and sheer presence occupied several rooms of its own. They continued to work on the Bank plans as something of a side hobby, both together and when they were alone, continually striving for an element that would render it perfect. Survival.</p><p>During Martin’s third visit, Sergio’s house gained one new occupant, then suddenly several overnight. Martin joined the gang as easily as if he had been a member from the start; that was to say, naturally with a bit of contention with Tokyo and Nairobi. Despite the disruption of some of Martin’s more controversial ideas, Sergio was grateful for his presence. </p><p>Because when the gang asked how they would get Rio back, Martin looked at him with a spark in his eyes and a knowing grin. “Sergio. You know what we have to do.”</p><p>There was only one way they knew to stir enough chaos to relocate an international criminal from whichever hellhole they tortured him to the western country that pretended to be innocent of such crimes. </p><p>They were going to steal the national reserve from the Bank of Spain.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p><b>Somewhere in southern Spain, </b> <b> <em>Hora Cero</em> </b></p><p>From his position on the outside in a caravan traveling the length of the southern Spanish coast, success felt more like a distant memory than an object within reach. Sergio fiddled with the buttons along the control panel, ensuring nothing malfunctioned before the work could even begin. Silence enveloped the small enclosed space save for the clicking of his fingers against buttons, and when no sound came through his headset, he felt more agitated than he should have.</p><p>Something about the heist felt wrong, despite the hours of time spent perfecting it during the past two years. He just couldn’t place <em> what </em>was wrong. The same feeling rose frequently in the weeks they gathered in the monastery in Florence, when developing his brother’s plan to melt the Spanish national reserve felt more like a death sentence than a rescue mission. Too many uncertain variables put their fate up to chance, and he had almost called off the plan on several occasions. Yet Sergio had promised to rescue Rio, and rescue him they would. The only question was whether his lucky strike would last long enough to rescue the rest of them from the Bank, whether he was leading his group to their funeral or another show of force by the Resistance.</p><p>Their movement wasn’t alone. That, fortunately, was confirmed in the moments after wealth rained down upon Madrid — the redistribution of wealth that had always been one of his goals from the heist. The first pieces of his new game of chess moved exactly as expected: in front of all of the major national buildings in Madrid, including the Bank of Spain.</p><p>A convenient benefit of printing nearly a billion euros was the technological capacities it afforded them, in other words, a team of Pakistani hackers able to tap into all the devices or communication channels they needed. Listening in on the defense radio frequencies enabled them to carry out their first act, and within minutes, a label reading <em> BRIPAC VI </em>identified the trucks they would use to enter the bank as if supplied by the military and not a merchant on the dark web. So far, the plan was seamless.</p><p>In the minutes that followed, a mountain of paper cranes began to pile up on the command panel in front of him, a nervous habit that helped only as a means of occupying his hands. Everything fell into place as expected: the rioting supporters in front of the bank serving as their shield, the Civil Guard letting the team inside after intercepting a connection to pose as the commanding officer, and then ushering out extra hostages while keeping the protestors away. And then, one hour after their torrent of money in the streets first began to create chaos, the windows exploded with a push of a button on a tablet Palermo held. The Bank of Spain was sealed. </p><p>For a few minutes, Sergio allowed himself to enjoy the tantalizing sliver of hope — that maybe in the months he spent working on it with Martin, the plan was no longer suicidal, and they would escape alive. That required them to secure the most critical piece of their plan, but that mission was in progress. </p><p>On one of the screens, Tokyo and Nairobi moving down a hallway without the key to that piece dashed all his hope. </p><p>“What?” He murmured, clicking between the screens until he grew white at the standoff in the lobby. “No no <em> no—” </em>A few tense moments passed as a few others arrived, surrounding Tokyo, Nairobi, and the guards from the balconies above. Frozen in panic, he had no time to warn Palermo against shooting, and the scene descended into chaos before his eyes. The battle between glass shattering into millions of pieces that flew toward Palermo and the bullets raining for the air was too much to handle, and, gasping for breath, Sergio forced himself out of the chair. </p><p>A brisk pace through the sand carried him to the water in moments, and for a while he could only stand there lamely, allowing the waves to soak the bottom of his suit pants and his shoes. How had he ever believed that he could make Andres’ plan his own? Months hadn’t been enough to fix all the holes — he needed <em> years, </em>a lifetime, as he’d had to perfect the Mint plan. Implementing a plan that wasn’t his felt like charging in blindly to battle without a competent leader. No matter how many weapons or supporters they had, something would always be off.</p><p>Jagged breaths escaped his lips, broken by intermittent sobs. There was no getting out alive. What was a rescue mission if he couldn’t guarantee the survival of their prisoner or any of his soldiers? He was a smart man, but he felt so <em> foolish </em> for carrying out a plan he’d always thought insane. No amount of time or revisions could save it — save <em> them </em>— and the uncertainty of all of the moving variables already proved to him that his inability to account for everything would lead to their downfall. If the explosion of glass killed Palermo, their fate was already sealed. </p><p><em> Palermo. </em>How many minutes had passed since leaving the pressure cooker of a caravan he didn’t know, but a cocktail of guilt and despair propelled him back toward the caravan to check on his friend. Sergio drew in deeper breaths as the door pulled open, and he slid into his command chair, straightening his tie. </p><p><em> “Joder.” </em>From what he could tell, Palermo was injured but clinging to life without the ability to see. During the time he was outside, the CNI must have arrived, and their tent outside the bank was already fully assembled when the outside view flashed on one of the screens. Quickly, Sergio clicked around the buttons on his headset until it tuned into the microphones surrounding the tent. Two voices discussed the next steps; a familiar one he recognized as sub-inspector Rubio, and a second he placed as Colonel Tamayo. A third familiar voice joined before long: Prieto. As expected, Prieto ceded command to Tamayo, who he expected to be much more volatile of an opponent. </p><p>Then, in a final assist to his own team, Prieto insisted in a whisper: <em> “Call her. I sent her to interrogate Anibal Cortes.” </em></p><p><em> Her </em>being Alicia Sierra, Inspector for the police and known amongst her colleagues as a cold-hearted bitch. Exactly the sort of woman they would send to break the spirits of a boy who had hardly known what he was getting into in the first heist. </p><p>Sergio glanced at the screens while the police inside the tent scrambled to follow Tamayo’s orders to get Sierra on the line. There was little time for him to question the gun suddenly in Palermo’s mouth at the hands of Tokyo, as his attention returned to Sierra on the line with Tamayo. </p><p>
  <em> “Talk to me.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Alicia, Tamayo here. Did you get anything out of him?” </em>
</p><p><em> “Nothing that can help us, Luis. Look, send him to his mama. She’ll make him some soup. He’s worn out from all the drugs and inspiring chats.” </em>Sergio swallowed the feeling of guilt that this part of their escape plan worked as expected. Rio’s experiences in the past two months were an unfortunate casualty of the safety of the rest of the gang. </p><p><em> “Put him on a plane and come with him to Madrid. You’ve got work here.” </em>And the next pieces began to cross the board following the strategy he envisioned. </p><p>“<em> Let me play a part in this, Luis. Say you want me to get that shepherd and his damn flock outside the bank.” </em></p><p>
  <em> “Exactly.” </em>
</p><p><em> “Joder, I’m so happy, my water could break.” </em>  There was a silence on the line, and Sergio almost clicked the button to switch channels. A sudden exclamation from Alicia kept his ears glued to the line. <em> “Wait! Bring in Murillo to negotiate with us.” </em></p><p>Sergio inhaled sharply. His hands were shaking as he folded the next paper crane, but the folds were sloppy in his effort not to allow their move to catch him off guard. <em> “No, I’m serious,” </em> Alicia continued when Tamayo didn’t immediately respond, <em> “didn’t he manage to get into her pants in the last heist? Either she’ll lead us to him now, or he’ll be so shocked he shits himself and we’ll be able to barge right in while he’s busy drooling over her. It’ll be great. Make sure you have popcorn waiting for us in Madrid.” </em></p><p>Unfortunately for them, Sergio had already considered the potential for them to bring her in. Raquel still worked within the police system and would be easy enough to transfer, although not in law enforcement, and in a position with a much lower security clearance. For her past connections to him, however, he could see how they would think her useful enough to bring in to the negotiations team as a bomb to explode <em> his </em>negotiations. </p><p>Preparing for a chess match was simple. It required studying the opposition’s strategy and predicting how they would move, and exploiting his one weakness against him was all too predictable a move — he was one step ahead of them. But even with this advantage and a logical, methodical approach to his own strategy, Sergio wasn’t infallible to human emotions as much as the Professor liked to believe. The first word of Raquel’s response was all it took to twist his heart in an ache that hadn’t been this severe since the moments after she left the hangar to see Angel in the hospital, the first time he was forced to mourn her. </p><p><em> “Raquel? We need you at the Bank of Spain.” </em>Somehow, the call had been pushed off to Prieto, he noted. </p><p>
  <em> “What?” </em>
</p><p>But it also doused him in ice water, jolted into a present where she would resume her position on the opposite side of the board, his enemy. Reason and strategy shoved aside longing and heartache, the Professor crushing Sergio. </p><p>
  <em> “There isn’t time to explain. There will be a car waiting outside in five minutes.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Keep your car, I’m not coming. I left the force three years ago.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “And don’t you want the chance to catch them this time?” </em>
</p><p>There was a long silence on her end, and he wished there were technology to tap her mind as well. To know what she was thinking. To see what three years did to her opinion of him. She gave a sigh that answered neither of those questions. </p><p>
  <em> “Prieto, I’ve moved on. I’m done involving myself in cases where I take the fall for your decisions.” </em>
</p><p>Prieto was silent now, and Raquel made no effort to continue the conversation while he considered his response. <em> “You know, I heard there was new evidence that rendered your sister’s testimony inconclusive.” </em></p><p>Of course that was the card they were playing. A year after the heist ended, in the final stages of Raquel’s court case against her ex-husband, her sister came forward with proof that Alberto abused her too, despite Raquel’s attempts to warn her. That was enough to win Raquel full, permanent custody of Paula and a restraining order while a criminal case was pursued against Alberto. He’d had his connections in Madrid following along, watching, in case she lost the case and he needed to be clearer in his intentions to help her. </p><p>Naturally, justice only got them so far, and the case against Alberto was settled quietly with Raquel’s restraining order upheld and custody ensured, but with Alberto maintaining his job in forensics. </p><p><em> “I…” </em> Raquel began, and his heart ached for her again. <em> “Your rumors are bullshit and mean nothing to me. You saw the photos.” </em></p><p><em> “Oh yeah? How sure are you of that?” </em> Prieto paused. <em> “You’d be surprised how far Photoshop will get you these days. Are you sure enough to risk custody of your daughter?” </em></p><p>Her sharp exhale was audible over the line. <em> “Fuck you, Prieto. I’ll be there in fifteen.” </em></p><p>The caravan filled with silence again, save for his unsteady breaths and quickened heartbeat that thundered in his ears. The question of her loyalties burned on the forefront of his mind, but the Professor silenced his racing thoughts when the countdown to the doors opening reached the half hour mark. Ultimately, her current stance would not matter. Raquel would play whichever side she thought would ensure her daughter’s safety, and convincing her that was him was a matter for later. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>A monastery outside Florence, Italy, six weeks earlier</b>
</p><p>“You never told me what happened with your dear <em> Inspectora.” </em></p><p>Martin’s voice broke Sergio out of the daze he fell into reading a recent newspaper from Madrid, in which the settlement of the domestic abuse case against Madrid police forensic analyst Alberto Vicuña was relegated to a column on the third page. Above the story, his thumb brushed across a small photo of Raquel and her sister testifying at the hearing.</p><p>He hastily flipped the newspaper shut, not wanting to delve into those aspects of her personal life. Martin seemed not to notice, sliding into the chair next to him at the table in the courtyard, drinking from a glass of milk. As usual at this hour, everyone else was still asleep. “What do you mean? I told you everything that happened between us.” Sergio pushed his glasses up his nose.</p><p>“I meant with the paper crane. Was she really that bad in bed you <em> boom boom ciao’d </em>and sent her packing back to Madrid?”</p><p>
  <em> “Martin!” </em>
</p><p>“What? I have to say I’m surprised, Sergio, I assumed she was a great fuck since you—”</p><p>“She didn’t come.” His cheeks were a furious shade of red, deepening in his exasperation.</p><p>“Well I mean, their pleasure is only really necessary for reproductive purposes, so—”</p><p>“Martin that is <em> not </em>what I meant she seemed very satisfied in the two nights we spent together.” The clarification came out in a single breath, not wanting to risk another misunderstanding. It was already painful enough discussing her silence, let alone their past. “To Palawan, I meant. I never heard from her. She must… no longer reciprocate the sentiments.” He swallowed thickly, fighting back the tears that stung his eyes.</p><p>“No, no fuck is good enough that she agrees to move across the ocean with you after knowing you for three days. Are you sure she saw it?”</p><p>This time, Sergio decided not to address the uncomfortably explicit discussion of his past sex life. “Marseille said he slipped it in with her daughter’s school things, didn’t he?”</p><p>“Well there’s your problem!” The force with which Martin slammed the glass of milk onto the table made him flinch. “Next time, don’t make it look like her daughter’s latest class project. Put it somewhere she can’t ignore it.”</p><p>“There won’t <em> be </em>a next time. It’s too risky, Martin. I won’t endanger the plan just to talk to her again.” Besides, he thought, they had already discussed the chances of her being brought on to negotiate the case; a prospect that sent a chill through him.</p><p><em> “Too risky </em> la concha de tu madre! No one knows Marseille’s face! Mira, let’s get her on our side <em> now </em>before they make her their puppet again.”</p><p>Actually, Martin had a point. If they reached her now, it wasn’t too late to convince her to join the plan. Raquel would be far more useful as an ally than as an adversary.</p><p>Sergio sighed, looking at Martin for a moment before shaking his head. “Vale.”</p><p>“Vale!”</p><p>A few days later, another message written inside a Dali red paper crane appeared on her doorstep. According to Marseille, she had at least picked it up and taken it inside; whether she crumpled it or tore it to pieces or simply tossed it aside after that, time would tell.</p><p>Three weeks passed with no call to the special cell phone set aside for her to contact, which he took as a sign that the crane plan had failed again. Martin’s points struck something within him, though, and not just a nerve when discussing their bedroom life. The Raquel he knew would not go back to being the puppet of the police force when it hand-delivered her something that could barely be called justice at all after years of trying to prove her ex-husband’s abuse.</p><p>No, he could not give up on her yet. Another plan began to form in his mind, and this time, Sergio intended to make his intention to reach out clear. A reminder of all the injustices the system committed, tucked away in the next phase of communication, would help win her over.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Somewhere in Southern Spain, 15 minutes before the bank doors unlock</b>
</p><p>The bomb the police dropped on him wasn’t calling in Raquel as they expected. The real bomb came five minutes later, when an argument between Tamayo and Angel revealed Tamayo’s intentions to bypass regulations and seize all electronic devices to be scanned, effectively rendering him blind and deaf in the command tent. </p><p>
  <em> “Colonel, let’s think about this, let’s do a sweep. They can’t have hacked everything.” </em>
</p><p><em> Joder. </em> Tamayo’s profile depicted him as a bull charging forward, and the plan crystallized around the understanding that he would keep pushing and pushing until they were backed into a corner with no way out. What their predictions <em> hadn’t </em>accounted for was a complete disregard of protocol.</p><p>
  <em> “These guys even have pictures of your dick, Angel, and that mole you have on your balls. Do you want to say hi? I’m sure they have your mic activated.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Colonel Tamayo, the protocol is to do a sweep—” </em>
</p><p>Angel’s protests fell on deaf ears, each command Tamayo barked to the tent making his intentions clear. Protocol was to be ignored. And if protocol was ignored…</p><p>They had fifteen minutes to complete a task that would take no less than two hours, forcing them to move another pawn into play. A pawn whose moral code would never allow him to do what they needed of him.</p><p>His eyes fixed on the screens as Tamayo collected each device from the team inside the tent, watching as the cameras were covered one by one. He stumbled around the control panel until a shaky hand closed around the radio.</p><p>“Palermo? Palermo, it’s urgent.”</p><p>“Professor, it’s Tokyo.”</p><p>Of course. He was down ears and eyes in the CNI tent and a commanding officer in the bank. “How is Palermo?”</p><p>“Operational, <em> señor!” </em>The strength of Palermo’s voice allowed him to release a nervous breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.</p><p>“Listen — they’ve found out we’ve had them bugged. We have to speed things up and remain calm.”</p><p>“Calm? You can remain calm because you’re in the caravan. We’re surrounded by the army here, we don’t know when they’ll enter, we don’t know through which entrance—”</p><p>“Has Bogota started?”</p><p>“Sí, he’s been down there a while. Opening that door will take longer than an hour, maybe two.”</p><p><em> Two hours. </em>They didn’t have two hours. Tokyo asked how long, and Sergio was quiet at first as his palms rubbed his face. “No lo sé. The doors open in fourteen minutes, you have to be prepared for them to enter.”</p><p><em> “Qué?” </em>Palermo’s tone reflected the incredulity of the situation.</p><p>“Palermo, he took all of their devices. Covered all the cameras. He knows we have them bugged, and he didn’t wait for a warrant to do a sweep. Tamayo, he’s— he’s volatile, and we can’t count on them to wait to negotiate.”</p><p>Tamayo wouldn’t have bothered to call Raquel if they expected the invasion to succeed, but in order for it to fail, <em> they </em>needed to get to the red boxes before their entry began. Unlike Raquel, whose profile he’d studied to anticipate her moves, Tamayo was much more explosive and unpredictable. The only thing he could expect was to be met with force.</p><p>“Bien. So we bring in the Flipper.”</p><p>“Yes. But I’m telling you, he won’t unlock the door. You have to be ready to use the plastic explosives right away if he won’t cooperate.”</p><p>“Vale.”</p><p>He set the radio on the control panel for a moment, but it was in his hand just a moment later on an impulse. “Palermo,” Sergio called, his friend’s name slipping out in a hoarse whisper around the lump that had lodged in his throat.</p><p>“Sí?”</p><p>“They called her.”</p><p>There was a moment of silence on the other end, followed by a sigh. “Chin up, hermano. At least you get to ask what she’s wearing again.”</p><p>Sergio began to splutter before anything coherent could come out. By the time he collected himself enough to respond, Palermo was inside the elevator, travelling 48 metres underground to the key to their plan.</p><p>There was little time to process Raquel’s imminent presence in the tent, because as Palermo initiated the next phase of the plan, Prieto began to leave the CNI tent, which would effectively cut off all of their communication channels until Raquel and Alicia arrived. Sergio hastily grabbed one of the archaic cell phones and pressed the button that would dial Marseille’s.</p><p>Just as Alicia expected, Sergio lacked some of the usual dominant confidence that characterized the Professor as he established contact with the CNI — because thinking of Raquel now had him back in the <em> Sergio </em> mindset, straddling the line between Professor and Sergio at a point where the difference between his identities could mean life or death for both of them. Allowing himself to blur the lines between his personal life and the heist was what caused Oslo’s death when <em> Sergio </em> spent the night with Raquel instead of watching the screens and what caused Moscow’s death because of <em> Sergio’s </em> carelessness in falling for her and <em> Sergio </em>fantasizing about moving to Palawan with her only for her to discover his identity and interrogate him as the Professor. The battle for dominance between the two sides of his personality cost lives in the first heist, and he wouldn’t let anyone die again because she was his weakness.</p><p>Tamayo confirmed what Sergio already assumed. Bypassing the search and seizure protocol was only the beginning, and the same countdown that ticked away the seconds until the bank doors opened might also count down all the time that remained before a heist under the guise of a rescue mission turned into a massacre.</p><p>There was only one glimmer of hope in this all, which came in the form of a petite brunette storm that would soon enter the command tent. Later, Sierra as well. A quick message to his team in Pakistan was all it would take to bring back one of his missing senses, tapping into their phones the same way he had with all of the other officials’. The plan hinged on Tamayo not being smart enough to realize he could bug their phones quickly, and Alicia being too preoccupied to think to point it out.</p><p>Raquel, however, was the right balance of intelligence and grace under pressure that meant he <em> needed </em>her on his side again. (For the sake of the plan, he’d insist, and not for the selfish reason of wanting to be close to her.) So when she charged into the command tent five minutes later, the warmth of her voice greeting Angel spreading a similar feeling through his chest, he picked up the radio to Marseille again without a second thought.</p><p>“Marseille? Activate phase 1 of Plan Roma.” </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. iii. lover, best friend, my worst enemy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Negotiations begin, and Raquel receives a familiar set of postcards.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>aaaaa thank you so much for your continued support with comments &amp; kudos! It really really warms my heart. 💕 I am back much earlier this time, as this was getting long soooo I split the chapter in two. This chapter's song/title is So Tied Up by Cold War Kids. I'd also just like to point out the slowburn tag on this in advance, in case this chapter worries anyone 🙈</p><p>Also I am relatively new to the fandom but I'm trying to be more active so if anyone wants to connect and chat about Serquel/Ralicia/anything else, I'm @thehangarkiss on twitter and aliciasierra on tumblr! :')</p><p>As always, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I'd love to hear what you think!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The familiar landmarks of Madrid blurred together in her unfocused gaze, eyes staring blankly out the window of the car as Raquel attempted to process the phone call with Prieto and what awaited her at the Bank of Spain. His threats were clear, and as much as she doubted his authority and despised the thought of working for the police again, the risk of losing Paula was too unbearable a thought to leave to chance. She blinked away the haze in her eyes, pulling herself into the present as she realized the journey to the bank was already over. The lion’s den called for her, and Raquel was unsure who their prey actually was: herself or the robbers inside the bank.</p><p>Cameras flashed and blinded her in the mania of the press outside the bank, an overwhelming amount of media attention that sent her back to the day she had originally resigned from the force. The reporters refused to accept her silence and blinded her with the same flashing lights and incessant questions, only then, freedom greeted her on the other side. Now, Raquel tread deeper and deeper into a life she had tried to leave behind. </p><p>On the other side of the tent, the masses of protestors wearing familiar red jumpsuits found a new target for their fury in Raquel. The crowd stretched back as far as she could see, a clear display of resistance and support for the Professor and his gang. She became a magnet for their projectiles in addition to her hatred, and Raquel had to duck to avoid an empty water bottle thrown in her direction. Sighing, she rose to her full height. If only they knew how much she agreed with their cries of injustice.</p><p>Raquel wanted even less to do with the police, the CN, and the press <em> now </em> than she had three years ago at the conclusion of the heist. Then, the CNI hadn’t really offered her any choice but resignation, just as they blackmailed her into joining their team now. Prieto passed her on his way out of the tent, and Raquel had to fight to conceal a smirk when the man was too busy avoiding her gaze to see the half-eaten sandwich thrown in his direction by a protestor.</p><p>The distance to the police tent seemed like it stretched forever, but she crossed the expanse as quickly as she could. When she finally stepped inside, Raquel offered a few low mumbles in greeting to Angel. The space between them had, potentially irreparably, grown; yet he was the only person in here she trusted not to try to take her down or exploit every minute error. Still, he would have to prove his loyalty remained.</p><p>Everything and nothing had changed in the years since Raquel last stepped inside a negotiation tent, and if she closed her eyes, she wouldn’t know if she were standing here now or three years before during the first hectic hours of the heist. Around her, police officers scrambled to analyze the situation inside the bank on their computer screens, as the technology had already begun to assess and catalogue the facts of the situation. The strain of the first hours’ rush to establish a strong command and full understanding of the situation was palpable in the air, and the pressure sent a shiver down her spine.</p><p>The similarities were jarring given just how <em> much </em> had changed. The last time she stood in this spot, it was as an idealistic Inspectora who trusted the system and its processes — and her negotiation skills — to remove the hostages from a dangerous situation with no casualties. Raquel did still have faith in her own talents, but any confidence in the system whose laws she upheld was long gone. <em> Justice </em> was a mirage that seldom happened in practice. Tamayo might believe they worked for the greater good, but the harsh reality was that almost everyone in the system did what it took to preserve the status quo and their own reputations rather than execute the law in a fair way to those it was supposed to protect. That was why Prieto called her instead of trying to use his brain to beat the Professor. He knew he wouldn’t win, so he was willing to stoop as low as he needed.</p><p>There were exceptions to the rule, of course, but none were strong enough to counter how disillusioned she felt with justice. The same system that let her take the public lynching from <em> their </em> decision to prioritize one hostage’s life over the lives of several others was the one that let Alberto off with a slap on the wrist and loss of custody after she won their case and the one that threatened to take it all back now. In a way, Raquel had been lucky. Other heart-wrenching stories from some of the women she helped in her job at the prison painted a darker image of the system, which had locked them away for daring to stand up to the men who hurt them. If men were powerful or rich enough to pull the right strings, no amount of evidence or claims of self-defense mattered. The system failed them just like it had failed her.</p><p>All in all, Raquel was exhausted, clinging onto a past hope that she might be able to change the system from within. Although her faith in systematic justice was gone, a passion for justice still burned within her — and she had no intention of letting Prieto, Tamayo, or the entire CNI push her around if she was forced to be here. Their countless cruelties might be shoved under the rug elsewhere, but not so long as she was in the command tent. She refused to play a role in it.</p><p>Raquel and Tamayo briefly nodded to each other as she advanced through the tent. Neither cared to pretend she wanted to be there, or that he wanted her there. They stopped near the screens and the frenzied cops locating every possible detail of the operation, and her arms folded to her chest as she took in the scene. After a moment, she tore her gaze from the screens to stare defiantly at Colonel Tamayo and Angel. An awkward silence had enveloped them that neither dared break, and their unease was faintly amusing — but only barely, because they offered none of the critical instruction about the role she was meant to play here. If they wanted her to sit on the sidelines and watch their operation until the Professor called, they were in for a surprise. “Good to see you again, Raquel,” Angel offered after a moment when the silence grew unbearably thick.</p><p>Angling her body toward him, she gave a tight-lipped smile. “So glad to be here, Angel.” When her friend responded only with a soft nod, Raquel continued. “What’s that?” She nodded to the countdown displayed on many of the screens, ticking away the five minutes and twenty one seconds that remained. The silence returned, Tamayo refused to meet her gaze, and then she <em> knew. </em> Her eyes darkened in sudden understanding. “Don’t tell me you’re going in.” What the <em> hell </em> was she doing here if not to shock the Professor into stumbling and to ensure the safety and peaceful negotiation of the hostages?</p><p>Their continued silence fueled her growing dismay. “What, you’re just going to storm in there the moment the doors open?”</p><p>“Well, yeah. That was the plan.” Tamayo announced their intentions with a rising temper of his own; clearly, he was not used to anyone questioning his judgment. He stood up straighter to convey the air of authority she threatened, and it tipped her over the edge.</p><p>“Absolutely not!” It didn’t matter that Raquel barely had clearance to be inside that tent, or that she fell below almost everyone else there on the chain of command. If they were willing to threaten custody of her daughter to bring her to negotiate, she refused to stand around while they made poor decisions that would fall on her just like they had last time.</p><p>“Raquel, you can’t—”</p><p>“Do you not give a damn about the hostages that will get caught in the crossfire?” Raquel demanded at a rising volume that began to attract attention from the officers working around them. She didn’t care. “People will <em> die </em> if you go through with this. You can’t go in.”</p><p><em> “You </em> can’t just march in here and start giving orders like you’re the Inspectora in charge like last time! We <em> all </em> remember how that ended.”</p><p>Her hands closed into fists at her side, and she lifted her chin and arched an eyebrow, a silent challenge that seemed not to faze Tamayo. Unfortunately for him, she was <em> well </em> accustomed to men brandishing her sexuality like a sword against her. “Do you people not learn your lessons from his last strategy? What’s the point of me being here if you’re going to charge into battle like this? They won’t hurt the hostages, but the moment you attack them and threaten their plan, all bets are off. He <em> will </em> retaliate — so if you’re going in, why the hell am I here as the fucking <em> bait </em> to throw him off?” Raquel laughed dryly, shaking her head. “Because that’s all there is to it, right? I unsettle him so he slips up and you catch him? That strategy won’t work if we never make it to the negotiation table.”</p><p>“She has a point, Colonel.” Angel’s defense caught her off guard, and she frowned in his direction. Cornered by two who questioned his decisions, Tamayo grew red, his eyes bulging. He redirected his ire toward the sub-inspector with a seething glare. “Alicia wanted her here for a reason, and if she’s going to be taking charge of negotiations, we should trust Raquel by proxy.”</p><p>Of <em> course </em> Alicia Sierra had been the one to pull her in, confirming her speculation that she was here as nothing more than a distraction. However, she could spin this point to her advantage. Raquel knew she was no proxy for Alicia, and Angel likely knew that as well. But for now, surely that meant Tamayo had to trust her, even if only so as not to have to confess that she was only here as the object of the Professor’s desire and not as the skilled negotiator that she was.</p><p>Her original astonishment faded into a quiet appreciation in Raquel’s eyes before she turned to Tamayo. “Look. Nothing good will come from you charging in there. People will die, and there’s no telling how much equipment they have in there with the billions of euros they printed. They have their own <em> army </em> with the hostages in there, and it might be strong enough to cause significant damage to our forces as well.”</p><p>Tamayo’s fists trembled at his side. His nostrils flared and he glanced between them like he wanted to counter her argument, but she had appealed to a fragile part of his ego. “Besides, if you care even the <em> tiniest </em> bit about public opinion, just look outside. If we kill them all, they become martyrs. Do we really want to risk that threat to popular support?” </p><p>The Colonel gave a curt nod at her argument, taking a step backward and continuing to avoid her gaze. He remained quiet for a moment, glancing at Angel for backup, but the sub-inspector stepped closer to Raquel. Invisible lines drawn in the sand in the war that divided their camp before they could begin to address the enemy.</p><p>“We just don’t know enough about the situation yet.” Raquel argued in a final plea, forcing him to look at her. “Wait until Sierra gets here, and then we can move forward. A few hours won’t make a difference in the end.”</p><p>“Fine.” It was clear Tamayo hated having to agree with her and waste a few hours but even he recognized it was too early to risk a failed mission. “Then we are going to know <em> every </em> damn detail of their operation inside there. Find me how many of them there are, what weapons they're using, how <em> many </em> weapons they have, how many hostages there are, what damn <em> color </em> their underwear is, and what the <em> hell </em> they want from the goddamned Bank of Spain.”</p><p>“Isn’t it obvious?” Raquel couldn’t resist a laugh. “The gold, Colonel. Apparently, a billion euros isn’t enough for them.”</p><p>It <em> wasn’t </em> just about the gold, though. It couldn’t be. Riches were never the Professor’s intentions in his original heist, and she doubted the gold was meant to be another massive redistribution of wealth. The potential <em> logistics </em> of that made her head hurt.</p><p>“That gold is protected inside a vault that floods the moment you disturb it. They aren’t going <em> scuba diving </em> inside the Bank of Spain.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Raquel shrugged. The Professor and his team could do anything they wanted with the winning combination of his intelligence and the fortune they printed. If Tamayo wanted to underestimate him, they would continue to be several steps ahead of the force. That wasn’t her problem.</p><p>The question of their other motivations lingered in Raquel’s mind as she and Angel settled into a table together, an array of familiar faces spread across the surface on photographs taken an hour earlier from their infiltration of the army’s operation. Notably missing was Andres de Fonollosa, shot to death in the same moments the team on the outside sped to a hangar they would find empty. That led her to wonder who commanded the team inside the bank now. Thumb brushing along an image of Silene Oliveira, Raquel chuckled at the thought of the Professor ever leaving the feisty woman in command. One name to eliminate.</p><p>Silence surrounded them once again, but it was more comfortable than before. Angel browsed files on the weapons and explosives the team brought in while Raquel studied the new faces to the group. To her irritation, neither of the two new members of the team were anywhere in the Spanish government’s records, but she supposed it made more sense to outsource tasks than to choose recognizable faces like last time. An hour passed that felt like mere minutes in the comfortable work rhythm and familiar company that made this almost just like any other operation they worked together in the past, until the sudden sound of a phone ringing jolted them into the present. They stood from the table and crossed the tent to stand near Tamayo, who gave an exasperated sigh as he slid on a headset to accept the call.</p><p>“Hello, Professor.”</p><p>“Buenas tardes, Colonel. I have to admit, I’m a little surprised not to see your troops inside the bank like you promised. Couldn’t find a Cuban cigar to smoke in the governor’s office in time?”</p><p>“Did you call just to mock me? What do you want?”</p><p>“No, not at all.” A pause. “In fact, I’m here to hold up my end of the bargain. As promised, I will be releasing five hostages within the hour.”</p><p>There was a catch. There had to be, as the Professor would never release five people from the bank without anything in return. Tamayo, irritated by the arrogant confidence that resonated in the Professor’s voice, charged forth with all of his predictable fury. “And why would we let you do that? You don’t get to send hostages out of the bank like a little parade for brownie points in the international media.”</p><p>“Ah, did I not mention who those hostages are?” It was that same infuriatingly smug, patronizing confidence she hated when she first thought she was interacting with a psychopath, but she couldn’t say the conversation didn’t merit it now. They fed the fire with exactly what the Professor had wanted. “I suppose I wasn’t fully honest with you, Colonel. I will release the governor of the Bank of Spain and his security detail, which makes <em> six </em> hostages.”</p><p>Her first suspicion was that it was a trap — but no, the Professor was too upfront in his intentions for it to be a trap. His actual reasoning remained uncertain. Raquel wasn’t alone in her confusion, as Angel and Tamayo reflected the bewilderment that spread through the tent in the puzzled glances flickering between them. “You’re going to release the governor?”</p><p>“Yes. As a gesture of good will to thank you for the change of heart.” A pause. “You surprise me again, Colonel. I thought you’d be relieved to have the governor out, given all that he can access.”</p><p><em> That </em> was the trap, but Raquel knew too little of the Bank of Spain to be certain what the governor could access. Whatever it was, she suspected it was major. It shocked Tamayo into a loss for words, jaw dropping open and stumbling through unfinished words, and his eyes were wider than she had ever seen them. The Professor sat comfortably in the silence of Tamayo’s reaction, and Raquel was positive he wore a smirk. “Everything alright, Colonel?”</p><p>“It isn’t me you should thank for the change of heart, Professor. Three years later, and your dear Inspectora is <em> still </em> working to help you.”</p><p>At that, Tamayo tore the headset from his ears and shoved it to her. A vague noise of protest left her lips, but this time Angel shrugged instead of providing the backup or reassurance she needed. Well, this was not the reunion on an island in the Caribbean he had promised her, but it would have to do. Raquel adjusted the headset onto her head while the Colonel strode to the other side of the tent to confer animatedly with the investigative team. She had less time to prepare herself for the conversation than she wanted — than she needed, really — but that luxury was not afforded to her.</p><p>Raquel did, however, make time to reach for the nearest pencil and fashion her hair into its signature bun.</p><p>“Hello, Professor.” Miraculously, her voice began at a strong volume. Smirking, she challenged, “Miss me?” She didn’t know what possessed that question; perhaps a desire to establish herself as the confident leader this go around, perhaps a twinge of residual bitterness clouding her judgment.</p><p>Another pause stilled the air, and she thought she heard his breath hitch. The Professor remained quiet for a few moments, and then let out in a low and surprisingly husky voice, “You have no idea.”</p><p><em> What the hell was that? </em> Resentment began to build a steady fire within her, fuelled by that bitterness and his response that served as kindle to fan the flames. The Professor had already proven once that he was a fantastic liar, and Raquel no longer trusted her instinct that his response in <em> that </em> tone was genuine, even as the trained psychologist in her doubted some emotions could be forged in the heat of the moment like that.</p><p>No, she would not fall for his ruse this time. Her hands found their way to her hips, and she stood taller. “Cut the bullshit. I’m here to make sure you maintain that ‘no one gets hurt’ philosophy of yours, and we both know an invasion is the surest way to end that. And Professor?” She didn’t pause long enough for him to respond. “Let it be known on the record that I want <em> all </em> of the hostages you promised, not just the governor.”</p><p>Raquel yanked the headset from her ears and thrust it at Angel. He moved closer to her, wearing that same self-gratifying look of pity he always gave her. She wanted nothing of it. Shoving him out of the way with a bit more force than intended, she strode out of the tent into the crisp spring air at a brisk pace, continuing past the perimeter of their operation. By the time a stunned Angel emerged from the tent to find her, she was already out of sight.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>A walk to clear her head — and simmer down — eventually led her to her favorite café in the area. Her heart continued to race, and to her annoyance, she didn’t know if it was from the anxiety of entering the shark-infested waters of a police tent or from the familiar intonation of the Professor’s voice, unaltered by a voice-changing software, for the first time in years. By the time Raquel pulled open the door to the café, her mind was still spinning. The walk hadn’t served its purpose, but perhaps a boost of caffeine would help.</p><p>Sliding into a booth after she placed her order, Raquel slipped the pencil out of her bun and let her hair fall loose around her shoulders, brushing a hand through the strands. She pulled her phone from her pocket and frowned at the number of notifications that had piled up, many from curious friends or colleagues who wanted to know why they saw her enter a police tent after her resignation. Barely having an answer for herself, let alone them, Raquel swiped through them without responding.</p><p>One such message, however, made her pause. <em> Are you really negotiating again? Did you see the Professor’s video? </em> No one had bothered to tell her <em> directly </em>, but this confirmed the bits of conversations between some of the other officers in the tent about a video that played in Plaza Callao during the downpour of euro notes into the streets. It didn’t take long for her to locate the video, and she tensed at the familiar red jumpsuit and Dali mask the figure wore. Hesitantly, Raquel slipped her earbuds into her ears and pressed play.</p><p>
  <em> This message is for all of you who see this mask as a symbol of resistance. We need you. </em>
</p><p>Her heart skipped a beat as the Professor removed the mask. At first, Raquel’s lips pressed together as she considered the call to action, but as the calm yet impassioned speech continued, she gaped at her phone screen in horror. No <em> wonder </em> people were confused at her appearance in the tent. Prieto and Tamayo mentioned the heist, mentioned the blimps raining money on the streets, but neither bothered to mention the critical detail that <em> they were torturing a kid. </em></p><p>Because that’s what Anibal Cortes was. He’d gotten in far over his head in the first heist, which made him an easy target to try to exploit as the weakest link. </p><p>Now, that same logic made it all the more abominable. Of course, she should have realized that was why Alicia Sierra was involved from the beginning.</p><p>It also explained <em> why </em> the Professor seized the Bank of Spain, because it was never about the gold. It was a ploy to rescue a member of his gang, and Raquel didn’t blame him. Her loyalty to the state was fragile in the moments she first entered the tent, but the Professor’s video shattered any sliver of desire to help ensure their definition of justice. Exhaling slowly, she locked her phone screen again, placing her elbows on the table and slumping her face into her palms.</p><p>Raquel passed several moments in silence staring blankly at the stains on the table’s surface, something mundane and uncomplicated to dull her focus. The sound of an employee placing her americano on the table broke her out of her reverie, and she sat up straight and nodded her thanks. “This came for you,” he added, setting a stack of glossy paper next to the americano.</p><p>Brow furrowing, she peered across the cafe in search of the person who left it, but a sea of unfamiliar faces greeted her. A man hastened out of the cafe with surprising urgency, but she dismissed it after a moment. </p><p>Her lips curved into a frown as her eyes returned to the glossy sheet of paper placed inconspicuously next to her coffee. A postcard. Her jaw dropped, gasping as the stack spread out to reveal a series of postcards underneath.</p><p>The same Palawan postcard Sergio gave her when they chose their future island home taunted her on the top of the stack, and her stomach sank under the heavy weight of unwelcome nostalgia. On the back, the sight of a message scrawled in tiny lettering elicited another gasp. Quickly, she glanced at the other cards, heart fluttering as the faces of each destination they considered as an escape stared back at her. The message that began on the first postcard continued across the back of each of them.</p><p>
  <em> Inspectora, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I’m sorry our first conversation ended like that. The truth is, I would have much rather conveyed how much I missed you three years ago in Palawan. I tried to express that with the paper cranes, but I suppose a written message cannot convey the full spectrum of emotions. If you didn’t see my messages… take a closer look at the inside of the cranes. You should also look at the back of the postcards I gave you in Hanoi, if you kept them. If you did see them, I do understand why you didn’t come. You have every right to hate me. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> At one point, when I told you of all the injustices the banks of Europe commit without consequences, you said you were with me. I need to know if I can trust you again. I know you share the same disgust with the justice system as I do — I could see it in your eyes. I’m sure you know by now the heist was never about the gold. It’s about taking a stand against the system who illegally detained and likely tortured a 22 year old for information he doesn’t have. It’s also the same system that protected your ex-husband’s career even after he was found guilty. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Please consider joining us. I know what Prieto is trying to do, and I can stop him if you let me. You’ll never have to hear from me again after this, if that’s what you want. If I can trust you, I recommend you wear a blue blouse with a gray suit. If you want me to leave you alone, wear a cream blouse with a dark blue suit. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Whatever you choose, please be discreet about these postcards. It could be dangerous for us both if Tamayo or Sierra discovers this message. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yours, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> S.M. </em>
</p><p>Was this man not <em> done </em>crumbling her life into pieces?</p><p>Teeth sinking into her lips, the past few hours caught up to her and threatened to overwhelm her, and her thoughts began to spiral again: he <em> had </em> tried to reach out to her but not well enough and why did she still care and did that count at all then and why hadn’t he tried harder and why did she still <em> care </em> and he’s right about the justice system and how could her closest friend from the academy torture a poor kid and <em> why did she still care. </em></p><p>(Of course she still cared. If she still cared in the immediate aftermath of learning Salva’s true identity, when she questioned why he strung her along instead of bugging her with <em> un puto micro </em> and interrogated him instead of arresting him, she suspected there was little she could do to force indifference after years of processing the events on her own.)</p><p>She drew in a shaky breath as she turned over the postcards so that the destinations of all the islands that never served as their perfect escape faced up. The Professor was right, of course. There were so few examples of justice lately that it was hard to believe it existed at all, and her heart broke at the thought of all that Alicia Sierra must have done in the months she hid away Anibal Cortes in god knows which filthy corner of the planet.</p><p>And yet all of the grief that the message awakened and how right he was only increased her fury at the Professor himself. For having the audacity to contact her after three years of silence, but more importantly for being so <em> right </em> about how she agreed with his beliefs. For stirring a forgotten feeling that she managed to bury for so little time after months of work with her therapist.</p><p>Except it hadn’t been three years of silence at all, had it? She had known there was something odd about the paper cranes from the moment she saw the first among Paula’s school things, and the second that appeared on her doorstep six weeks ago while she was out with Angel seemed so out of place. <em> Six weeks ago </em> — right about the time Alicia would have started to interrogate Cortes. Of course.</p><p>At this point, it was difficult to know in which direction she should channel her anger, and Raquel blinked dizzily to remain grounded in the present. Another sip of coffee helped with that, then another. Through the tightness in her throat, the coffee barely slid down, but the effort it required distracted her. She set the cup back on the table and allowed her eyes to drift shut.</p><p>Raquel hated Sergio Marquina for storming into her life three years ago and upheaving an entire worldview, leaving her to rebuild her life in the chaos following his disappearance. She hated Alicia Sierra for not realizing that the Professor would never have let his team members know beyond what was absolutely essential, which of course didn’t include his own post-heist location, and for the unforgivable ways she likely tried to get that information from him. She hated Angel for pretending to be her friend but being just as caught up in the justice system’s lies as she had been, unwilling to open his eyes to the painful reality. She hated herself the most for allowing a single man to affect her so easily after she swore never to let a man wield power over her again.</p><p>In the end, her decision was easy. Raquel couldn’t turn a blind eye and allow Sierra, or Tamayo for that matter, to get away with torture, which were a far cry worse than the so-called <em> liquidity injections </em> the Professor protested last time. But the decision was for <em> herself </em>, because her passion for genuine injustice was much stronger than her fear of a cowardly man with erectile dysfunction and unwarranted arrogance or his battering ram of a boss. Sure, her decision was founded in the trust that the Professor would hold up his promise and make Prieto’s threats disappear if they won and the threats became genuine, but it certainly wasn’t out of any loyalty to the Professor himself. </p><p>However, her allegiance would not be so easily won. Raquel debated other choices in her wardrobe to make a statement of her own, wondering how to stall for more time to ensure he was serious about wanting to align with her.</p><p>As Raquel sipped at her americano while brushing a thumb over the exotic destinations she never got to see, her mind wandered into the dangerous territory of considering what her life would be like had she escaped to Palawan with the Professor and his gang. The thought of the other postcards and paper cranes that waited on her bookshelf twisted all of that speculation into regret, because that was what her life <em> could </em> have been, and she found herself resenting the Professor all over again.</p><p>Still, it was impossible to swat away a different burning curiosity that brought a faint smile to her lips, dulling some of her anger: of what it would be like to work <em> with </em> the Professor this time than against him. He was a formidable adversary, and perhaps joined against a common enemy, they could expose Tamayo and Sierra and <em> any </em> Spanish official involved for their crimes against humanity. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. iv. hate that you know me so well</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Raquel finds herself on both sides of an interrogation, watches an intervention fail, and receives a surprise gift (and visitor).</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi again! Thank you so much for your continued support; I definitely wrote this one faster than I expected because all your kind words motivated me. 💕 I mentioned this last time, but since I'm starting to get into it and follow more people, I'm @thehangarkiss on twitter if anyone else wants to connect :') </p><p>This chapter is a continuation of the previous one and is again from Raquel's perspective. The title song is Hate That You Know Me by Bleachers, and I finally made a playlist of the title songs in order by chapter here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/002ul9WDGiWIuy2Q2HDB7F?si=1QciuCg9Q5KtnUKb_5VMag (also check out my profile for a full playlist for the fic &amp; other lcdp playlists soon !)</p><p>Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the update!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The contents of her mug slowly drained, and an hour later, the caffeine only furthered her agitation. A dull ache pounded in her head that even the clarity of caffeine couldn’t solve. Groaning, Raquel took this as her cue to return to the police tent. At least there she might find something to take for the headache instead of slowly allowing it to worsen as her thoughts dug her into a deeper and deeper hole.</p><p>Once outside the café, she first had an important task. The four postcards felt heavy as they jostled amongst her phone, keys, and cigarette pack in her bag, like condemning evidence she would hand-deliver to Tamayo if she weren’t careful. Rounding the corner to an alley off to one side of the café with a dumpster for all its trash, Raquel pulled out her lighter and the pack of cigarettes under the pretense of smoking, then carefully slipped out the postcards. After lighting the cigarette, she gripped the postcards and let them burn over the dumpster. <em> Blue and gray, cream and dark blue </em>Raquel committed to memory as she became entranced by the way the flames devoured his words. There was a certain satisfaction in destroying his olive branch, even as she knew she would accept it.</p><p>Somehow, the police tent swarmed with more chaos than at the beginning of the heist by the time she reentered. Raquel waded through a sea of officers moving frantically from one station to another as if there was new information to assess — that was right, the Professor kept his word and released the governor and his security guards. A low hum left her lips as she approached the table where one of the guards argued with Tamayo while the governor shook his head.</p><p>Before Raquel could introduce herself to the guards and catch up on the interrogation, a new entry into the tent pressed a pause button on the scene. The shrill whistle as Alicia Sierra entered her kingdom with ease had stolen their attention. It gripped hers as well, but Raquel did not intend to submit to the inspector’s will as easily as the others. Alicia began to order an investigation into various points of the robbery they had already begun to address with the help of the governor and his security team, but no one dared point that out.</p><p>The lead inspector sauntered through the tent toward her prey, who crossed her arms to her chest and stared at her with the same defiance she directed at Tamayo when he tried to push her around earlier. Unlike the rest of the officers in the tent, Raquel knew Alicia like the back of her hand, a conseqtauence of the years of close friendship that crumbled as the rift between their ideologies grew. Sierra had never enjoyed Raquel’s outspoken nature in a professional setting, certainly not when it involved condemning the unnecessary use of force. Given her likely extracurricular activities over the past few months, that made much more sense.</p><p>“Raquel.” Alicia’s smile was pleasant, and if she didn’t know better, it wouldn’t seem false. “Cuánto tiempo, ay?”</p><p>Her own made no effort to appear genuine. “Cuánto tiempo, sí.”</p><p>“Can you believe it?” Alicia pointed to her round center. In her head, Raquel weighed the odds of her going into labor and being forced to quit the operation. Her due date evidently approached, but how far remained was unclear. Raquel put the probability at a 50-50 chance.</p><p>“Congratulations, Alicia.” Despite an effort to sound sincere, her monotonous tone lacked enthusiasm.</p><p>“I suppose I should congratulate <em> you </em> as well.” Breaking the silence between them with ease, Alicia stepped to the side and ushered Raquel to an empty table in a quieter part of the tent. Intrigued — but nonetheless suspicious — she followed and took the seat opposite Alicia. “For putting out the fire Tamayo wanted to start in the bank early on.”</p><p>Her brow knit, spelling confusion across her face. “It wasn’t hard to figure out that was a suicide mission,” Raquel shrugged.</p><p>Antoñanzas appeared with a box of donuts and countless other sweets Alicia requested, depositing a steaming mug of coffee in front of Raquel. “Thought you could use this,” he mumbled timidly, turning away after she flashed a genuine look of gratitude.</p><p>“You know,” Alicia spoke around a bite of glazed donut, “I want to pick them off one by one just as much as Tamayo does.” She shrugged casually. “I, unlike him, can also see that provoking the Professor with a direct attack will create a greater bloodbath than necessary and ruin our image. And that’s where you come in.” Pausing, Alicia nudged the box toward Raquel. “Donut?”</p><p>She inspected the box as if it contained a number of poisons it was her job to identify instead of sugary pastries. Although Raquel suspected an ulterior motive, her stomach grumbled at that moment, reminding her of the hours that passed since she last ate. She chose a chocolate donut from the box, and from the first bite, she knew she made the right decision. “Mmm, and I thought I was only here to seduce the Professor into failing at his job,” Raquel continued after a moment, thoughts drifting back to their earlier conversation that suggested that plan might actually be <em> working </em>. For now, at least. After the initial surprise of speaking to her again faded, the Professor would outsmart them.</p><p>“Oh, for sure, that too.” Raquel rolled her eyes. “You also are the only one with enough cojones to tell Tamayo ‘no’ to his face. God, I wish I would’ve been there to see it. Tell me, did his eyes do that thing where they look like they’re going to pop out? Like this—” Alicia mocked the Colonel’s earlier expression with surprising accuracy, releasing a few bright laughs that grated her nerves. “Anyway, you neutralize his anger with reasonable arguments against obvious strategies, and then we think of a more clever way to take those bastards out.” When Raquel merely shook her head in response and drew a large sip of her coffee, Alicia continued her speech through a mouth full of donut. “You know, you’re too much of a pacifist, but the force really could use someone like you around again.”</p><p>“Really?” Raquel placed Alicia’s argument somewhere between a genuine compliment and an attempt to fully reel her back to the side of the police, and she was unable to mask her surprise.</p><p>“Really. I mean, most of these men are too dumb, too arrogant, or too much of a coward to carry out an effective investigation at this scale. You’ve seen Tamayo and Prieto. They’re a joke. It’s just a shame you lost your instincts somewhere along the way…”</p><p>Defensive, Raquel folded her arms to her chest. “I didn’t <em> lose </em> my instincts. I was the one who found the Professor’s hangar after Angel’s accident.”</p><p>“Yeah, after you slept with the man!” The way Alicia cackled so easily over a moment that still haunted her caused her expression to darken. “You really have great taste in men, don’t you, Raquel? First an abusive asshole, then a sociopathic wimp under a dork genius’s disguise who somehow charmed you into falling in love with him in <em> five days.” </em> Each word thrust a knife deeper into Raquel’s heart, picking apart all of her greatest uncertainties and regrets from that week. Sure, Sergio made valid points about the system, but those arguments didn’t soften the blow of days of deception he thought he could rectify by passing a polygraph test.</p><p>“My love life suggests nothing about my instincts in an investigation, Alicia, and you know it.” The acidic words hung in the air as a challenge, and Raquel sat up straighter as her gaze bore into her former friend.</p><p>“Oh, it absolutely does.” She rolled her eyes again, prompting Alicia to speak with greater urgency. “Think about it, Raquel. You fell into a charming man’s trap <em> again. </em> You didn’t believe me when I warned you about Alberto at first, either. Sure, you discovered the Professor’s identity before he hurt you, but don’t tell me you don’t think he is every bit as capable of cutting you down as Alberto.” Her gaze wandered anywhere but toward Alicia, but the other grew silent until she met her pointed stare. Leaning back, Alicia continued, “Besides, didn’t I hear about you turning on Angel because you didn’t want to believe your boyfriend could be the head of the heist? That’s not good instincts. That’s letting your heart lead you into a trap.”</p><p>Yes, that had happened. And yes, Raquel was wracked with guilt for months after the accident, even after Angel made a full recovery. But the story was much more complicated than the basic facts Alicia presented to frame the argument in such a light. Or so she could try to tell herself — a few stray tendrils of doubt began to wrap around her mind, and Raquel wasn’t sure which was stronger: her lingering wounds from the heist or her deep distrust of Alicia Sierra.</p><p><em> Was </em> the Professor leading her into his trap again? Or was he serious, just as he’d claimed he was about falling in love with her before? Did she even still believe he had fallen in love with her, despite a polygraph that confirmed it before her eyes? She didn’t trust Alicia, but she wasn’t sure she could trust the Professor. And with Alicia’s words beginning to make her distrust herself, who <em> could </em> she trust?</p><p>Noting Raquel’s lack of a response as her face scrunched up, deep in thought, Alicia took it on herself to continue. Unwilling to let the other continue to make her doubt herself further, Raquel cut in, “Believe what you want. You’ll see I still have <em> every </em> bit of those instincts that helped me figure out that you were the one who gave Angel a copy of my video with Ortigosa from the academy.”</p><p>There was a hint of warmth to Alicia’s laughter this time. “That’s what I like to hear. Don’t disappoint me, Raquel.” Alicia rose from the table to confer with Tamayo and the released hostages, leaving Raquel to finish her donut and coffee alone.</p><p>For a few moments, she focused on the bitter taste of the coffee and allowed her mind to go blank. The seeds of doubt Alicia had planted in her mind began to sprout, watered by her own uncertainty piling on top. Only one thing was certain in Raquel’s mind: if the Professor enticed her into his trap with empty promises, she would never forgive herself for endangering Paula. Placing him in the same category as Alberto wasn’t fair, but that didn’t negate all of the pain he <em> did </em> cause her. His wounds were unintentional by the time he realized he cared for her, but carved on top of those Alberto inflicted, healing was a difficult and messy process - one that she thought she had finished until now.</p><p>The phone ringing again ended her search for clarity in her mind, and this time both she and Alicia wore headsets as the Professor’s call broadcast over the speaker inside the tent.</p><p>“Professor.” Sierra began, an irritating amusement shining through her voice.</p><p>“Inspector Sierra? How nice. I was looking forward to negotiating with you.”</p><p>Alicia laughed, glancing pointedly in Raquel’s direction. “Yes, I know you <em> really </em> like to negotiate with policewomen.”</p><p>“Well, you are correct, I <em> do </em> like to negotiate with a certain policewoman. Hello, Inspectora Murillo.”</p><p>Raquel sighed. “Hello.”</p><p>“You know, I forgot to ask you something earlier.” She and Alicia shared a look of confusion. “¿Qué lleva puesto?”</p><p><em> Oh. </em> Suddenly, she realized the postcards never contained a suggestion for her wardrobe at all, but a response to his proposal. <em> Blue and gray, cream and dark blue </em> — Raquel repeated in her mind, not that it mattered. Too many questions remained to place her firmly in either camp. “And why do you need to know that, Professor?” She challenged, arching an eyebrow. “You already know my psychology.”</p><p>That threw him off into a stunned silence, and a smirk spread on her lips that none of the officers in the tent would correctly interpret, because the context of his question existed only in the ashes of the postcards in the alley next to the cafe. The Professor never gave her a deadline for her response, after all, and she intended to take all the time he would allow. Watching him flounder for a few hours would give her immense satisfaction while she bought time to weigh the risks and fully assess the situation. As much as she hated letting Alicia under her skin, the inspector complicated what had seemed like a straightforward decision the moment she questioned her instincts. </p><p>Finally, he cleared his throat and began again. “Ah. Well, it’s been three years, hasn’t it? Perhaps it would be good to… reacquaintance ourselves.”</p><p>It was difficult to resist a dry laugh, but her desire to avoid suspicion won out. “What if I need time to think about that?” She still wore a smirk, and Raquel hoped the expression was enough not to make Tamayo or Alicia question her motives. They spoke in a secret language of their own, words heavy with implications she hoped he understood. In this case, her need for more time. “I mean, you could be lying about why you ask that, and are just trying to stall for time. Again. Why should I trust you’re not just wasting my time?” <em> My </em> time. Not our time, speaking on behalf of everyone in the tent; a subtle difference to specify her own, because of that nagging voice in her mind that wondered if aligning with him would be worth the stress, or if it would be nothing more than a waste of time that placed herself — and her family — in danger.</p><p>“Inspectora, you wound me.” Despite the teasing air to his tone, Raquel could detect a faint hint of pain. “I thought we were past all of the lies between us.”</p><p>“Maybe we’re not.” Arms folding to her chest, some of her confident posture faded, which was instead edged with residual bitterness. As much as she wanted to be over the past, the last few hours broke open all of the wounds that felt like they had only just healed. By the end of the heist, Raquel was sure they’d be scars. “It’s pretty easy to be past it all when you spent the last three years on vacation on an island with nothing to worry about, isn’t it?”</p><p>Alicia glanced at her with a furrowed brow and a frown curving at her lips, but she didn’t immediately question the odd tension hanging in the air. “Well, I would have loved for you to join me, Inspectora.” There it was again — the huskiness to his voice that aroused a whole new set of questions in her mind. Yet it was gone just as quickly as it resonated in his tone, and his quick wit returned. “You do deserve a vacation, Inspectora. If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?” </p><p>Tamayo let out a grunt of protest, and Alicia made a show of rolling her eyes, but Raquel raised a hand in warning. She was curious to see where this would go. “Well, first, I’d find you and put an end to this madness.” Raquel was careful not to specify whether this would end in his arrest or her joining him, as each side of the call needed to believe different truths. “Then, I suppose I’d go to Lisbon. I spent a summer there before I joined the academy, and it always reminds me of simpler times.”</p><p>“Ah, Lisbon. Excellent choice, Inspectora Murillo. I can’t say I enjoy Fado as much as a Greek Sirtaki, but…” It was Raquel’s turn to roll her eyes as she began to question his intentions, but he didn’t let her think for long. “Hmm, what about you, Inspector Sierra? Granted, I can’t imagine you’ll have time for many vacations soon.”</p><p>“Oh, of course you’d think that. Working mothers can take vacations, you know. If I <em> must </em> play your silly game, I’d say Geneva.” When Raquel was unable to hold back a snort at her response, Alicia redirected her irritation to her. “What? It’s near Chamonix, not to mention a finance and NGO hub I used to visit with German on his work trips. Forgive me for wanting to remember moments alone with my husband.” There was something <em> off </em> about the way Alicia responded, beyond the choice of Geneva itself; she was never one to apologize for anything, and the words cut through the air more sharply than before. </p><p>Detecting some of the tension in the air, the Professor cut in again. “Have you decided, sub-inspector Rubio?”</p><p>Having forgotten Angel’s presence, Raquel’s gaze snapped toward her friend. She regretted that the moment his eyes met hers as he gave his response. “Porto.” Of <em> course </em> he chose a Portuguese city like her. Noting the looks he received from many of those gathered around the call, he grew defensive. “What? I like their wine.”</p><p>The Professor sighed. “Of course you do, sub-inspector Rubio. Alright, Colonel Tamayo, it’s your turn.”</p><p>“No, I’m not participating in your little games to waste time.”</p><p>“Well, I suppose you can stay in Madrid—”</p><p>“What the hell do you want, Professor? Was this just an excuse to distract us and talk to Inspectora Murillo?”</p><p>“Actually, Inspectora Murillo was right on the mark.” Raquel blinked back her surprise. “I thought I’d check in and see how you were settling in, if you found my gift to be useful yet. You need <em> time </em> to get to know them better, and I am more than happy to give that to you, Colonel Tamayo.” So he <em> was </em> wasting their time with all of that talk about vacations. “Look, talk to them a little more, take a break for the night, enjoy your evening. Buenas tardes, Colonel Tamayo, Inspectora Sierra—” another disorienting pause, “Inspectora Murillo. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”</p><p>Less than two seconds after the call ended, Alicia launched into her next plan of attack.</p><p>“Right. We never officially agreed to the truce, that arrogant hijo de puta imposed one on us. We just have to think of different methods so this one doesn’t get her mom panties in a twist.” Said the pregnant one, she thought to herself. At least Alicia remained on the same page as her about the methods of intervention, even if she would rather place the operation on pause for the night. “We’ll sneak in.”</p><p>Raquel had no doubt that this plan would fail like Tamayo’s original strategy, but Alicia Sierra was the only one of them who stood any chance at outsmarting the Professor, and Raquel was admittedly curious to see how the plan would pan out.</p><p>Sierra’s suggestion placated Tamayo for now, and as she turned away to find Antoñanzas, they crowded around the table where the governor and his guards sat — the only bit of the Professor’s advice they would take.</p><p>“Tell me everything you know about their set up inside there,” Tamayo ordered. The governor had already confirmed that the robbers were after the gold when he emerged from the bank in a diving suit, but the hostages hadn’t yet gone into specific details about the operations inside the bank.</p><p>“There are seven of them. I wounded the leader after a standoff with two of the girls. It looked bad, but he will survive,” explained one of the guards, a balding man with piercing blue eyes that sent a chill through her as their gazes met.</p><p>“Which one was the leader?” Raquel asked, locating the pictures she examined earlier and spreading out the robbers’ faces across the table.</p><p>“Those were the girls,” he explained, indicating Silene Oliveira and Agata Jimenez. “That’s the one I wounded, the leader. He said his name was Palermo.” One of the new faces that the databases hadn’t recognized. Raquel frowned. What did he contribute to the plan that the others could not? Or was he nothing more than manpower to make up for the loss of Berlin? No, the Professor would not have put him in charge if that was all he contributed.</p><p>“And this one?” She pointed to the other new face.</p><p>“He was part of the gold operation, along with her,” the governor interjected as he tapped Agata’s photo. Motioning to Daniel Ramos, then another former hostage — Mint secretary Monica Gaztambide — he said, “He forced me into this suit and told me I was going to dive. When I refused, he knocked me out.” That explained the bandages across his forehead, and she winced at the thought. “I woke up with a splitting headache when she came to say they needed me, not long after the doors opened.” The governor hesitated for a moment, his frown deepening. “They knew the names of all our family members and threatened to retaliate against them if we didn’t leave the bank when they instructed.”</p><p>“They want the secrets.” It wasn’t a question, but more of a panicked whisper as Tamayo’s eyes grew.</p><p>“I assume so, yes. Without me, I am not sure how they will access them, but I believe that man is involved.” The governor nodded to the other new face again.</p><p>“The secrets?” Raquel questioned, glancing quizzically between Tamayo and the governor.</p><p>“Classified state secrets,” Tamayo breathed, sticking out a hand to brace himself against the table. “Turning the other cheek to a terrorist cell in Southern France. Quietly paying off a boat to abandon refugees off the coast of Libya. Hell — even Cortes will get his own box eventually.” Raquel shuddered at the thought of what else Spain might have done, at the thought of what all they did to Cortes that would be classified under such secrecy. “How likely is it they can access the secrets?”</p><p>The governor shook his head. “I don’t know. Normally, I would say low, but I also thought it was impossible to break into the gold vault until today.”</p><p>Tamayo wheezed and slumped into a sitting position on the table’s surface, scattering some of the photos onto the ground. A doctor on standby in the tent after his earlier distress rushed to take his blood pressure as he struggled to maintain composure, but Tamayo swatted him off. “We have to get in there, <em> now. </em> Before that bastard gets anywhere near those secrets.”</p><p>Something told her the Professor was once again one step ahead of them.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>As she expected, Raquel was right: the operation tanked. The Professor called 35 minutes after their team entered the bank in a fog of halothane gas, interrupting the discussion of a rescue mission that would have ended in a bloodbath.</p><p>Alicia found the sight of Suarez and the rest of the operation team tied to chairs in their underwear far less amusing than she did, but Raquel concealed her soft laughter with a hand covering her mouth just in time. The permanent ceasefire was a lofty request — Alicia and Tamayo would never agree — but the comedy of their squad in their underwear singing Bella Ciao led her to believe the Professor aimed to use this video for something else.</p><p>Sure enough, the video was a bargaining chip for Anibal Cortes. This was the one instance where Raquel backed the Professor without hesitation. At least inside the bank, he was free from whatever Alicia did to him when she wasn’t in the tent. The United Nations’ involvement made her question the extent of the investigation, and she braced her hand against a chair as her heart began to race.</p><p>In the end, they got 40 hostages and Suarez’s team out of the exchange, a compromise that benefited both sides. </p><p>Tamayo handed command to Alicia once the Professor accepted the deal to make the exchange at 8:00 the next morning, but Raquel stepped in Alicia’s path before the inspector moved away. “Alicia.” Alicia sidestepped her to carry on, but Raquel refused to back down and crossed her path again. “Alicia, what did you do to that kid? Why the hell is the UN involved?”</p><p>Sighing, Alicia avoided her gaze. “It was all sanctioned by Internal Affairs, the Prime Minister…” </p><p>“What did you <em> do?” </em> Speculation would only get her so far. Raquel needed Alicia to confirm her actions for herself, to offer a new direction for her ire and grow the divide between them. </p><p>“Well, we didn’t go to the desert in Algeria for a relaxing tropical vacation, now did we? It made a great backdrop for the advanced interrogation techniques.”</p><p>“Alicia, he’s a <em> kid!” </em> </p><p>Alicia shrugged. “He’s old enough to participate in a robbery of a major government building. He knew the risks. Anyway, he held up pretty well to the gas and all the coffee we gave him.” She paused while Raquel shook her head in disbelief. “Come on, Raquel. You know what all western democracies do when no one is looking. Don’t make me spell it out for you.” The way she spoke of it so casually, as if she described any other interrogation and not a violation of an international human right made the floor begin to spin in her vision, dizzying her as her imagination ran wild with thoughts of all Alicia must have done to the boy while under the influence of the gas. And something told her that was nowhere near the full extent of the interrogation. “Shame none of it got him to talk. Then again, it did lure the Professor out of hiding, didn’t it? Perhaps the techniques <em> did </em> work.” Wearing a satisfied grin, Alicia stepped fully out of Raquel’s path, continuing her way to the rest of the box of donuts while Raquel was too stunned to respond.</p><p>So she didn’t. A combination of exhaustion and fury sent her out of the tent to call a taxi home, not bothering to announce her departure for the night.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Once again, the ride home passed in a blur, and Raquel felt herself doze off a few times. When the car pulled in front of her house, she quickly thanked the driver and climbed the steps to her door. A frown pulled at her lips when the door opened to an empty living room, but she remembered her sister had taken Paula for the night, and her mother must already be asleep. Raquel sighed. She was alone with her thoughts, then.</p><p>Part of her wanted to ignore the postcards and paper cranes like she had ignored the Professor’s dress code, but a faint disbelief and the desire to <em> know </em> itched at her and had already made the decision for her. Before she could second guess herself, Raquel stood in front of the bookshelf, flipping over the same set of postcards she’d received earlier.</p><p>A sharp gasp left her lips as she spotted the pieces of the coordinates, fitting together the puzzle one by one. Then, plugging the coordinates into the map on her phone, Raquel let out a soft <em> oh. </em></p><p>She could hear her heart in her ears, and she was strikingly aware of each breath she took in an attempt to steady herself. It did little to calm her nerves — her hands trembled as she reached for the first paper crane he sent and unfolded it. A message in tiny print barely managed to fit into the space on the paper, just as he promised.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> (Former) inspectora, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> There are so many things I want to say to you, that I should say to you, but all words feel insufficient. I know that it’s crazy to escape with someone you knew for five days - but I fell in love with you in those five days, and I will gladly live with a daughter, a mother, and a granddaughter if it means you’re in my life again. I’m so sorry for hurting you, Raquel. If you want to give it a chance, look up these coordinates: 10°0'0" N, 118°50'0" E. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yours, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> S.M. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Raquel grabbed the second crane with greater urgency but found herself unable to open it for a moment. The coordinates on the postcards matched those given in the message. Twice she held the keys to find him, but both times she dismissed the signs, believing he was gone from her life forever. There was no distinguishing between the blur of emotions striking her heart then — anger at both him and herself, grief, denial, love, disbelief, exhaustion. She paused to draw in a few more deep breaths, then bit her lip as she unfolded the second paper crane.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Raquel, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I don’t know if you saw the postcards or the message inside my last paper crane, or if you ignored them both. In case this is the message you choose to open, you should know that not a day passes where I don’t think of you. It’s so strange that I’ve spent two and a half years missing you, when the five days we were together is such a minute fraction of that time. It feels as though I have known you across several lifetimes. </em>
</p><p><em> It hasn’t made the news, but Interpol arrested Rio </em> — <em> Anibal Cortes. They’re torturing him. If you’re still as disgusted by the system as you seemed before, help us fight that: 43.7696° N, 11.2558° E. </em></p><p>
  <em> Yours, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> S.M. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Which hurt more: that she held a map to Sergio the entire time he was gone, or that he expected her to know to unfold the paper cranes, destroying a work of art? The rational side of her mind reminded her that passing along any message at all put him at risk, but Raquel had never been rational when it came to Sergio Marquina. The glue holding together the fragments of her heart began to weaken, threatening to shatter it again as she resented him for not trying <em> harder </em> to make it clear that the paper cranes contained messages. She ached at the thought of all the time they could have had together if she had seen the coordinates and escaped to Palawan — but another part of her questioned why she would have chased a relationship founded on lies, no matter the parts of Sergio that seeped into the Salva persona. </p><p>Her mind was a battleground between the logic and emotion, love and resentment, heartache and joy. The first battle was a draw — but this was not a war won by a single assault. Raquel straddled the line between the sides of love and hate just as she occupied a central position between the police force and the Professor.</p><p>For now, Raquel ceded to the overwhelming exhaustion, though sleep felt so far out of reach given her racing thoughts. She turned away from the bookshelf, still gripping the postcards and origami squares, and froze in her spot at the sight of a tall, mustached man watching her. Gasping, she fumbled for the gun she had never been more thankful to have at her hip again. The papers tumbled to the floor as she cocked the gun and pointed it straight at him. “Get the <em> hell </em>out of my house before I arrest you.”</p><p>The man raised his hands as if to surrender, wearing a faintly bemused expression that only furthered her anger. “Tranquilo, Señorita Lisboa. Estoy contigo.” He winked.</p><p>
  <em> “What?” </em>
</p><p>“Me llamo Marsella.”</p><p><em> Marseille. </em> Like the port city in Provence. The city — <em> Lisbon. </em> So the Professor’s earlier distraction in imagining a vacation anywhere they wanted had a point. <em> Estoy contigo. </em></p><p>That bastard was sending his gang into her <em> house </em> now.</p><p>“Why aren’t you inside the bank?”</p><p>“Work to be done on the outside.” Marseille nodded. “Messages to pass along.”</p><p>Raquel shifted uncomfortably, gun still raised. “That doesn’t give you the right to break into my house.”</p><p>“Sorry, Lisboa. Professor’s orders.” When she pursed her lips at him, he continued. “He wanted you to have this in case of an emergency.” Marseille held out one of the virtually indestructible phones she’d had in her 20s — practically ancient, but she suspected that was the point. Frowning, Raquel accepted the phone after a split second’s hesitation. “Dial the only contact and you’ll reach him, but you can only use it once.”</p><p>“Awfully presumptive of him that I won’t just arrest you right now, don’t you think?” Raquel interrogated, a challenge in her eyes.</p><p>“He said you would say that.” She rolled her eyes. “He also said it’s a matter of trusting each other, and he trusts you won’t turn on him.” </p><p><em> Damn it. </em> There he went again, identifying how she felt before she admitted it to herself. “And you already accepted the phone, Lisboa.” Marseille shot her a knowing look.</p><p>Raquel sighed. It was true — she had no intentions of arresting either of them. “That doesn’t mean I’m on your side. I can’t switch sides in the middle of a war just because I disagree with those in command. There’s more at stake than my ideals. If they catch you and learn I helped, I would lose my daughter. You might not know how hard I’ve had to fight for her, but <em> he </em> does.”</p><p>Marseille grew silent for a moment, long enough that she began to wonder if he intended to respond. Sensing her confusion, he continued, “You didn’t agree, the Professor knows that. He wants to show that you can trust him. That he won’t let you down.”</p><p>Laughing dryly, she shook her head. “It’s easy to say I should trust him, but I barely know him. I haven’t heard from him in three years, and before that, all he did was lie to me. Trust is a lot to ask from a woman you’ve hurt.”</p><p>Marseille frowned. “Did you not see the paper cranes?”</p><p>Raquel stepped aside, motioning toward the fallen postcards and paper cranes scattered on the floor in front of the bookshelf. “Look, Marseille. I get what he’s trying to do, but he chose a pretty damn awful way of reaching out. Of course I thought of him when I saw the cranes, but who the hell unfolds origami? Tell the Professor if he wants me to trust him, he has to try harder to prove that I can. Because based on past experience, all he’s done is hurt me, and that’s all he will continue to do if I work with you.”</p><p>He nodded. “I’ll pass along your message.” Raquel nodded in turn, sighing as she finally lowered the gun to her side. “One more thing. If you change your mind or want to say something that doesn’t need a response, leave a voice memo on your phone. We can retrieve and delete it.”</p><p>Her jaw dropped, and she felt another wave of anger rise in her chest. “You <em> tapped </em> my phone <em> ?” </em></p><p>“Not just yours. Geneva’s too. Madrid seized the others before you arrived in the tent.” Noticing her dismay, Marseille added, “Your microphone is only activated when you are inside the tent.” </p><p>“That’s a massive invasion of privacy!” Raquel protested, then felt a frown fall into place. Lisboa, Geneva, Madrid — <em> that clever hijo de puta. </em> God, why did Angel have to choose Porto?</p><p>At least he hadn’t gone with Cercedilla.</p><p>“He… hoped you would understand.”</p><p>Vague splutters of protest left her lips, but the Professor was right once again. If tapping into her phone was what sank an operation that would have killed people — albeit robbers — she preferred an invasion of privacy over murder. “Fine. Any other bomb the Professor wants to drop on me?”</p><p>Marseille gave something of a laugh. “No, that’s all. Buenas noches, Señorita Lisboa. We’ll be in touch soon.” It was only as he ducked out of her living room window that Raquel realized he managed to unlock it, and she frowned. Time to get better locks for that.</p><p>The sudden emptiness of her house magnified a similar feeling in her heart, in the place her faith in the Professor would occupy. She sighed quietly, tucking her gun back into its holster on her hip before bending to pick up the fallen postcards and paper cranes. Her eyes stalled on the photo of a beautiful beach in Palawan, which taunted her until she set the papers on the bookshelf and turned away without bothering to organize them.</p><p>Sleep refused to claim her, yet it was all that would silence the thoughts rapidly assaulting her mind. For a while, though, Raquel laid in bed, eyes squeezed shut as she willed fatigue to overcome her racing mind and heart. She stirred as though she had forgotten to do something, even as she knew there was nothing to be done for the case until the tradeoff in the morning.</p><p>Raquel glanced toward her phone resting on her nightstand, and she let out a huff. Of course that was it. She grabbed the phone with more force than necessary and unlocked it, tapping the voice memo application against her better judgment. For a while, her thumb hovered over the record button. What was there to say? You’ve got a lot of nerve to send your messenger to my doorstep assuming I wouldn’t arrest either of you? That only scratched the surface of everything Raquel truly had to say to him. </p><p>“Fuck you.”</p><p>Her thumb pressed on the record button before she could stop herself, and a sharp exhale followed as it hovered over the delete button. No, she couldn’t do that. She meant what she said. And she also knew her mind was not going to let her fall into unconsciousness unless she removed some of the weight from her chest. It was better to keep going.</p><p>“Fuck you for hurting me then leaving. And fuck you for sending a goddamned paper crane as if I would destroy that work to see if there happened to be something inside — especially when you made it look like my daughter made one of them! I know you had to be careful, but <em> joder, </em>Sergio. It would have taken a damn genius to know to unfold them. Maybe that’s why you thought I would.” Raquel let out a dry laugh. Oddly, ranting at him began to unravel some of the tension that had built in her chest. Taking that as a good sign, she continued.</p><p>“The postcards were clever, and I think I would have figured out that clue if I would’ve taken a better look at them. But… after the heist, I wanted nothing to do with you. I fell in love and then you were just… <em> gone. </em> I knew you had to leave, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Then because I couldn’t figure out your ridiculous clues, I thought you ignored me for three years. You said you were screwed because you could never see me again, sure, but how did you not figure out a better way to reach out? Or did you just not care enough to try harder? You have a billion euros, you could have done anything. It’s like — it’s like you didn’t want to hear from me at all. Because you were afraid of what I’d say. God, Sergio, I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to escape to an island with you, or when I said I was with you. If I saw those postcards much earlier… I might have joined you.” </p><p>“But I didn’t, and instead I had to pick up the pieces of my life you shattered and rebuild it myself. And I did a damn good job of that. I agree with you, of course I do, and my stomach churns at the thought of all Ali—” Raquel hummed, then corrected herself as if she hadn’t already referred to him by name. “Of all <em> Geneva </em> must have done to Rio. It’s horrifying. I just… I know you think of everything like a chess game, but this isn’t a game to me. Real lives are at stake here, and I don’t have the luxury of putting myself in danger for my ideals and someone who hurt me when that would impact my daughter.”  </p><p>“I’ll try to keep Geneva and Madrid in check, but that’s all I can promise you. Don’t make me regret taking that risk.” She drew in a deep breath, thumb hovering over the stop recording button. “And Sergio? If you want me to trust you, you have to try harder. Prove to me why I should give a damn whether you win.”</p><p>As she ended the recording, Raquel collapsed back into her pillows, teeth sinking into her lower lip. All of the anger she’d been able to channel at him before had taken a different form — disappointment and a burning desire for him to do better. To prove to her that she should trust him as much as she wanted to. </p><p>It was no longer a question of which side was right, or else Raquel would have joined the Professor the moment he spoke of the illegal detention of Anibal Cortes. It was about the pain she endured from the day Sergio Marquina walked into her life, and which counted for more: all of the ways he'd shown he loved her, or all of the ways he'd hurt her and damaged her trust.</p><p>And Raquel was no closer to answering that question than she was the day he escaped from Spain — her decision remained impossibly out of reach.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. v. tried going against my own soul's warning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>One person enters the bank, and 40 people and three red boxes leave it. Sergio uncovers important evidence while Raquel questions Angel.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello hello, I'm (finally) back with this update!! I'm sorry it took so long - life getting crazy and words not wanting to cooperate made this one harder to write. As always, I want to thank you all for showing support through kudos and comments! You've been so sweet, I’m overwhelmed by the support 🥺 I haven't finished replying to them yet bc I got busy, but I read then all and have been genuinely shocked by all the kind words, so thank you so much 💕 I promise to respond to everyone else soon! </p>
<p>Some of the ideas in comments on past chapters actually helped me rework some of the plot, soooo feel free to drop your theories in comments or on twitter (@thehangarkiss) and maybe they might work their way into the story 👀😏  in any case, I love hearing what people think is going to happen :')</p>
<p>Finally, the song for this chapter is My Own Soul's Warning by The Killers: https://open.spotify.com/track/5NnQpVPJKpFdGFkIdY1Gds?si=4UWBKh9JRFiipH-WosnkUg </p>
<p>Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>A few hours earlier</b>
</p>
<p>“Marseille? Initiate phase 1 of Plan Roma.”</p>
<p>Roma, after the Eternal City, after the stubborn and persistent love he had for her that sometimes seemed would last eternities no matter his attempts to suppress it. Of course, the plan wasn’t <em> really </em> about his unrelenting affection for her. It was about the heist, because he needed her on their side, or she’d beat him again. Because he knew she would agree with his true motivation to steal the gold. Because he had to do <em> something. </em></p>
<p>The first phase of Plan Roma passed without a hitch, or so it had seemed when Marseille lingered in Raquel’s favorite café near the bank just long enough to confirm she had received the postcards. So when she avoided the infamous question — <em>¿qué lleva puesto? </em><em>—</em> he wondered whether she had read his messages, if she chose to occupy a position of neutrality, if she misinterpreted the wardrobe suggestions in a more literal sense, or if she disregarded the instructions completely. Sergio allowed himself a careful degree of optimism that she hadn’t outright taken the police’s side.</p>
<p>Still, he needed more certain confirmation. Marseille passed along all the messages she may never have received that night, giving the clarity that may have been missing in the postcards earlier. More importantly, he offered a lifeline, a way out: the emergency phone that could aid her in the event she was endangered.</p>
<p>In the time it took Marseille to carry out this part of the plan, a mountain of origami figures had piled up on the control panel in front of him. The next call came halfway through folding a boat, and Sergio used the methodical steps as a distraction while Marseille recounted the message Raquel had for him. While his hands folded each step on muscle memory, his feet tapped restlessly against the ground, channelling the anguish he felt at not communicating his message more clearly sooner. His mind raced as he recalculated Raquel’s position in light of not having received any of his previous messages, believing he left her with nothing for three years; from that perspective, he understood her hesitancy to join his side, though his disappointment that she hadn’t seen the messages stung no less.</p>
<p>Minutes later, just as he was beginning to mull over his next steps, a notification of a new file downloaded from the team in Pakistan relayed her message for herself. Despite willing himself to remain immersed in the Professor’s rational side as he folded another paper crane, each accusation stung in a different way. Raquel had seen the paper cranes in his hangar folded just like the ones left for her — hadn’t she made the connection to him? Hadn’t she been curious enough to inspect it for a sign? While planning the messages inside the paper cranes, it hadn’t seemed like so much of a stretch to expect her to unfold them. Perhaps it was his fault for not finding another way to reach out after the first one failed.</p>
<p>Where Sergio would pick apart every other word in a futile attempt to understand her point, the Professor seized onto a sliver of hope her last words instilled in him: <em> If you want me to trust you, you have to try harder. Prove to me why I should give a damn whether you win. </em></p>
<p>It wasn’t a question about whether she wanted him to win — it was a question of proving she could trust him. The ball was in his court again to prove his sincerity, and it spurred him to action. He would show her every minute detail of his plan designed to protect them from the police. He’d show her how much he still cared for her, despite the part of her that had never wanted to believe that was true, even from her first interrogation of him at the house in Toledo where he’d bared his soul to her.  </p>
<p>To do so required the greatest degree of clarity yet, as he could no longer afford miscommunications; it required irrefutable proof that he could help her, that he <em> wanted </em> to help her, and that the safeguards in place would conceal her involvement. The failure of his paper cranes and her reluctance to join after the postcards did clarify one thing: words written on paper weren’t sufficient evidence. And judging by her evasion in the conversation in the tent, phone calls also wouldn’t do the trick.</p>
<p>He was left with only one option, and it was perhaps the most dangerous part of the plan yet.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Day 2, Madrid</b>
</p>
<p>Heavy under the sleep she was unwilling to get go of so soon, Raquel’s eyes blinked open. Until she read the time <em> 06:00 </em> on her phone screen as she clicked off the alarm, she’d thought the negotiations at the Bank of Spain were nothing more than a nightmare of distressing characters from her past coming to haunt her. Waking up an hour earlier than normal to arrive at the bank before the hostage trade-off forced her to confront the unpleasant reality.</p>
<p>The motions of preparing for the day were methodic enough to require little energy, and Raquel began to wake up with the sunrise after an hour as the first cup of coffee she drank lifted the last few dregs of sleep off her. By the time she entered the CNI operations tent fifteen minutes before the trade-off, keeping her eyes open was a much less arduous task. Caffeine couldn’t replace the energy sapped from her during a restless night, but the second cup she downed inside the tent before Alicia arrived certainly helped her focus.</p>
<p>Alicia’s car pulled up in front of the bank at 07:55, leaving little time for the frenzied press to capture photos of the inspector and her prisoner. His eyes glazed over as if he weren’t quite all <em> there, </em> but if anyone else noticed, they didn’t mention it. The suspicions that his demeanor was slightly off under the influence of whatever drugs Alicia had given him didn’t sit well with Raquel, and she frowned as she observed the sight from her position near the tent, arms folded to her chest.</p>
<p>The moment Alicia strode off to discuss the exchange with Tamayo from a few metres away, Raquel stepped in to fill the space next to Cortes, unable to fight the urge to speak to him — as if her soothing words made up for the crimes Alicia committed. “Buenos días, Señor Cortés. How are you feeling?” She asked, studying the dazed expression he gave her.</p>
<p>“Alright,” he murmured, letting a grin spread across his lips as he glanced toward the bank’s closed doors, as if he remembered that his friends waited behind them.</p>
<p>“For what it’s worth,” Raquel allowed, clearing her throat and surveying the area to ensure no one listened in, “I’m truly sorry for my colleague’s actions.”</p>
<p>He offered no response but a casual shrug, eyes still glassy as he stared at the unmoving doors. If she had to guess, the medications used to sedate him hadn’t all worn off. She flashed him a final sympathetic look before returning to join the small crowd of officers amassing around the tent. The presses came alight as the heavy doors began to creak open, and almost every camera flashed even before the first hostage emerged.</p>
<p>Raquel stole another glance at Cortes as he wove through the stream of hostages and disappeared inside the bank. Against the current, a figure steadily pushed toward the doors, catching her attention. </p>
<p>Expression morphing into a glare, Raquel marched that way until her fingers wrapped around Arturo Roman’s arm in a tight grip, preventing him from going any farther. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Roman?” He tried to jerk away, but she tightened her embrace. “They don’t need whatever self-congratulatory bullshit you’re trying to give them! I don’t want you anywhere near those doors. You’re supposed to stay inside the tent.”</p>
<p>A streak of red in the periphery of her vision, the shared fury on Suarez and Tamayo’s faces as the former charged toward the tent, and their panic tangible even from a distance briefly diverted her attention as the pair disappeared inside the tent. When her focus returned to Roman, he met her gaze with a petulant glare. “Oh, I’m <em> sorry, </em> I didn’t realize I was under arrest.”</p>
<p>Raquel scoffed. “If you keep going, you might be. Get back into the tent and stop trying to make this about yourself.” Angel had approached, sensing the tension between them, and Raquel shoved Roman in his direction to deal with. She’d had a sinking feeling why he moved toward the bank, and if his remarks on television were any indication of his feelings toward the robbers inside, he was yet another bomb threat to her peaceful negotiation process. She struggled to fathom how someone could be so obtuse to willingly become a hostage. Fortunately, Angel corralled Roman into the tent while the stream of hostages finally dried up, and her gaze fixed on the doors until the echo of them closing reverberated in the air.</p>
<p>When Raquel stepped into the tent a few moments later, an air of chaos enveloped the operations as no one seemed to know how to manage 40 hostages, a colonel on the verge of a stroke, and a soldier ready to charge back into the bank. Sierra handled the contents of the red boxes much better than Tamayo, or at least she concealed her panic behind her perpetually confident demeanor. Tamayo, for his part, ignored Suarez’s anger and impassioned arguments in favor of another mission to end the heist. At least for now, the red boxes resting in the centre of the table were the Professor’s shield, and no one dared touch them.</p>
<p>So what was this, then — a stalemate? Why had the Professor chosen to confirm they had the secrets now when they could have been an invaluable weapon later in the game? As Raquel crossed the tent and observed the animated argument between Prieto and Tamayo over the next stage of the operation, she wondered if the boxes were another ploy to stall for time.</p>
<p>A general shook his head and interrupted the argument between Tamayo and Prieto while Raquel hovered at the edge of the group clustered around the table. The concern in the general’s eyes and furrowed brow spelled danger, heightened by the urgency in his tone. “As long as the Professor has the secrets, he will always be a threat.”</p>
<p>“What are you saying we should do?”</p>
<p>It was obvious what the general had meant by that. One step ahead of Tamayo in interpreting the suggestion, Raquel felt her stomach twist into knots. The police had to eliminate the threat before it spiraled out of control, so fear of their worst secrets becoming public wouldn’t haunt them forever. </p>
<p>“There’s only one thing we <em> can </em> do.”</p>
<p>They had to neutralize the threat.</p>
<p>And to neutralize the threat, they had to kill the Professor and destroy his entire team. </p>
<p>Her mind raced against an invisible clock for any potential counterarguments. Their plan operated under the assumption that he hadn’t already made copies of the documents. It also assumed that the secrets died with him, but surely he’d also given orders to leak the information the moment they fired. It was also highly likely he’d found a way to digitize the documents and store them in the cloud, where they could exist forever. No, attacking would only increase the overall threat.</p>
<p>“No,” Raquel interjected, acting on an impulse to step in before a strategy had fully materialized in her mind. She shook her head, in part at herself having leapt to the Professor’s defense unprepared. All she knew was that her negotiation style was meant to result in zero casualties, and that included the robbers inside the bank, especially considering the potential number of hostages caught in the crossfire. “Killing him won’t do you any good. You think he hasn’t already made copies of the secrets?” Against her better judgment, she let out a laugh reflecting an amusement no one shared. “That’s the perfect chance for his team to leak the secrets. It’s the same if you attack the bank. Right now, you’re just wading deeper into a cold war. Don’t give him reason to go nuclear on us.”</p>
<p>Tamayo rose from the chair he had been leaning against, jaw clenched as he gave her a defiant stare. “So you suggest we just let this man run off with some of the most sensitive information in the world?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. But I do know that going after them will provoke a reaction, and these secrets are valuable ammunition.”</p>
<p>Tamayo took a hesitant step toward her, but any argument he wanted to make died on his lips as he turned away, lost in thought. Prieto stepped in front of Tamayo and gave him a warning look. “Luis, don’t make the same mistakes I made in the last robbery. End this threat now before it gets worse.”</p>
<p>Tamayo’s back was still turned to her, so Raquel came to stand at Prieto’s side, where they couldn’t avoid her. “That strategy is how you <em> make </em> it worse,” she insisted, shaking her head. “Look, it’s not in his best interest to release the secrets now unprovoked. He wanted you to know he had the boxes for a reason — probably to buy himself more time. Instead of attacking the operation, catch them when they’re more vulnerable.”</p>
<p>In a way, it felt like her arguments bought time for herself as well, as they made no progress in the negotiations with the Professor but also didn’t make decisions blinded by anger. Tamayo faced her again, wearing an even more sour expression. She wondered how much he regretted bringing her into this operation as a distraction.</p>
<p>“So what are you suggesting?”</p>
<p>“That we focus on their escape plans and preserving the gold.”</p>
<p>They’d corner the gang escaping from the bank, forcing them to surrender the secrets in exchange for their freedom. So long as the secrets didn’t get out, she suspected Tamayo cared little about their escape at this point.</p>
<p>“She isn’t wrong.” Alicia commented with a casual shrug. “We have to get the secrets out of the Professor’s greasy hands, but he’s probably looking for any excuse to leak them to the press.” The inspector pursed her lips, reflecting a thoughtful expression as if another plan was brewing in her mind, but she guarded any such ideas to herself. </p>
<p>A new strategy seemed to appease Tamayo for now, as irritated as he seemed that Alicia agreed with Raquel. His face flushed in rage at his current predicament, but he offered no further arguments and ignored Suarez’s noises of protest. Placing a stopper in his anger only solved the problem for now, and as the pressure inside the tent continued to mount, he grew closer and closer to exploding. She didn’t want to think about who all might be implicated in the inevitable destruction.</p>
<p>“If that bastard leaks a <em> word </em> to the press, the first warrant will be for your arrest,” he growled, then jabbed a finger in the direction of the area where lower-ranked officers had begun to interrogate the hostages. “I want every available officer interrogating the hostages! Not a damn piece of information goes unchecked!”</p>
<p>Raquel breathed a sigh of relief once Tamayo followed Suarez to a table where Antoñanzas questioned a timid man about the men who had led volunteers to work in high temperatures. The threat of her arrest worried her far less than the bloodbath an intervention would cause now.</p>
<p>While most of the others focused on collecting information from the hostages, Raquel ignored those orders and busied herself with the information they already had, using the facts to synthesize a clearer picture of the operation inside the bank. In part, following this path effectively redirected the command’s priority from taking out the Professor, which she saw as an illogical move regardless of her stance toward the man.</p>
<p>More importantly, if she could put together their escape plan, she could dissuade Tamayo and Sierra from pursuing them and capturing or killing them all. She’d questioned whether she cared if he won the night before, but that wasn’t true — her role was to minimize deaths, including the criminals, and the command would never arrest them alive.</p>
<p>A subtle voice wondered if her goal was to see whether his plans were secure enough to be able to trust to protect herself and Paula if she chose to join his side for good, but Raquel tucked that thought away under layers of information from the hostages. Whether she realized it or not, for the first time in her career, she had a faint hope that she’d fail at her job.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Huelva province, southwest Spain</b>
</p>
<p>The pieces on the board began to shift at 08:00, exchanging 40 hostages, a humiliated police squad, and three red metal boxes for an invaluable prize: Rio.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly by Alicia Sierra’s design, Rio looked nothing like the fragile boy who had stumbled out of the plane onto the tarmac at the airport. His confidence and winning grin as he waved to the protestors worked in their favor though, giving the crowd a reason to cheer and winning their cause more public support. Still, the vague, glassy shine to his eyes suggested the medicines used to sedate him hadn’t all worn off.</p>
<p>If public opinion was their first shield, the second came in the form of the boxes Suarez and his team carried to an enraged Colonel Tamayo. Presenting the boxes without provocation might have been counterintuitive, but guarding the secrets for later risked Tamayo launching another attack in the uncertainty of whether their attempt to break into the hidden vault compartment was successful — because the governor had surely informed Tamayo of the role he’d almost had to play as their dolphin. He <em> anticipated </em> an attack now, and the knowledge enabled him to pass off a warning to Palermo to prepare for whatever offensive Tamayo started.</p>
<p>What Sergio hadn’t counted on was Raquel managing to diffuse the colonel’s anger with reasonable points — and Alicia Sierra agreeing with her. This bought them at least a day of safety inside the bank while the CNI analyzed the information collected from the hostages and developed a new strategy, without ever having to unleash some of his other blows.  </p>
<p>Tokyo protested the necessary steps to obtain the next weapon, but it was essential the police suspected nothing before they removed the bug planted on Rio. Plan Alcatraz was a desperate escape plan, and he hoped they were never in a position where it became necessary to use, but he would not forfeit a potentially valuable tool just because Tokyo chose now not to want to become intimate with her boyfriend. An additional weapon could buy them just enough time to melt every last golden ingot.</p>
<p>His conversation with Tokyo ended on an unpleasant note that soured his mood. He almost ignored a notification of new file transfers from the team in Pakistan, expecting it to be scans of the classified documents inside the red boxes that concerned him little at the moment. Instead, when he glanced at his screen, they sent something even more valuable to him: an email exchange between Prieto and Alberto’s private encrypted accounts.</p>
<p>The efforts to destroy Raquel’s credibility dated back months, well before the case against Alberto had been settled. All of it was there: the strings Prieto pulled to keep Alberto out of jail and in the forensics department, the tabs placed on Raquel to catch her in any minor incident of bad parenting, and just yesterday, the plots to twist her involvement in the bank negotiations to benefit Alberto regardless of the outcome of the heist.</p>
<p>His indignation grew with each additional message in the exchange, but relief at the irrefutable proof that Alberto and Prieto conspired against Raquel balanced it out. </p>
<p>The emails would probably hold up in court against the men if Raquel presented them to a judge, but dragging the case along would also embolden Alberto’s attempts to bring her down, no matter the cost. And if Sergio was no longer around to dig up additional proof of their corruption, he feared she might not win. Especially if other judges were eas easily bought as the first had been.</p>
<p>Yet proof of the conspiracy against her was insufficient to convince Raquel to trust him, as her fiery pride would never allow her to accept the argument to trust him because he was her only option at safety. It also risked sending the wrong message, as if he were using a plot against her to manipulate her into trusting him, and there had already been more than enough miscommunications between them. No, if she trusted him, it had to be because she genuinely did, not because he was her best option. Sergio weighed several potential options in his mind, none seeming more salient than another.</p>
<p>A familiar string of letters and numbers on the license plate on the car in front of him brought his thoughts and his spring of luck to a screeching halt. Sergio swallowed thickly and scanned the road ahead for a side road to redirect his path.</p>
<p>When the car was a comfortable distance away, he turned the steering wheel to a sharp left to travel along a dirt path that had few connections to the main road. If the car suspected him, it would have to wait for the next opportunity to turn around and pursue him, which wouldn’t be for kilometres — long enough to buy him some time and distance. Fortunately, he wasn’t far from a shed where a second command vehicle waited in case of an emergency.</p>
<p>Knuckles white in his forceful grip of the wheel, he took a few shallow breaths to steady himself. The car was a timely reminder of the dangers inherent in the heist each way he turned, of the fact that helping him could prove to be all the more dangerous for Raquel. He’d been lucky to get away, but the car could very well follow him, a lingering danger despite the distance between them. If he was going to implicate Raquel in this, her involvement needed to be even more air-tight, as the risk of her crossing paths with someone who suspected her was that much higher. Nothing about her actions could point to him until he helped her escape Spain — if she accepted that offer.</p>
<p>He owed that much to her.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>Madrid</b>
</p>
<p>“Colonel! We’ve started triangulating the signal.”</p>
<p>Angel’s voice drew Raquel out of a deep focus on the blueprints of the bank and transcriptions of interviews with the hostages scattered on a table before her. A short distance from the computer station where Angel had been working, she struggled to see the places marked on a map of Spain he showed Tamayo.</p>
<p>“Like for a cell phone?”</p>
<p>“It isn’t as precise, by a long shot. The signal is reaching Galicia, Alicante, and even the rest of Europe.” She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “The important thing is it’s stronger in the south of the peninsula. They must be transmitting from there.” And just like that, the air was knocked from her lungs again.</p>
<p>“How precise is this?”</p>
<p>“This is the radius.” Angel held out a different map, indicating an area along the southern coast.</p>
<p>“He’s coordinating the robbery from a beach, on vacation? Come on!” The exclamation and exaggerated eye roll alerted Alicia to their discussion, and the other inspector joined her colleagues as she took the first bite of a donut.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t make sense for him to be close, he did that in the previous robbery. He’ll be expecting us to search every building in the area.”</p>
<p>“So they went to Portugal? Andalusia? Morocco?”</p>
<p>“Anywhere’s safer than Madrid. All he needs is a phone and a radio. Colonel, he knows our protocols. There aren’t any for conducting an investigation 600 kilometres from where a hostage crisis is taking place.” What concerned Raquel more than them closing in on the Professor was how well Angel read the situation. It was that same intuition that led him to investigate Salva well before Raquel herself became suspicious.</p>
<p>Coupled with Alicia’s sharp instincts, it was only a matter of time before they located the Professor and targeted his operation.</p>
<p>“Alright, you’ll go there.”</p>
<p>Alicia nodded her silent agreement, raising the donut to her lips as Angel began to protest. “Well, the area is still very wide…”</p>
<p><em> “Mis cojones, </em> Angel!” Some of the officers nearby stirred at Tamayo’s outburst, and Raquel took the disruption as her chance to rise from the table and listen in on their conversation as if she only then started paying attention.</p>
<p>“We need to narrow it down first.”</p>
<p>“Like hell we need to narrow it down,” Alicia commented, swallowing a mouth full of pastry as she jumped into the conversation. “If we can’t go in, we’ll get him from the outside, and we have to act now. We don’t have to <em> kill </em> him.” Alicia’s gaze met her own then as she raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “He’ll only leak if we attack or kill him, right? So let’s find him and steal back the secrets for ourselves. Delete them off the cloud before he can make new copies.” </p>
<p>Angel still didn’t seem convinced, but Tamayo stood firm in his plan after obtaining Alicia’s seal of approval. “Go there, right now. I need your absolute discretion. I would rather have you there than a couple of small-town Civil Guards who would only scare him off.”</p>
<p>Tamayo and Angel hadn’t noticed Raquel hovering nearby, but Alicia’s eyes lit up with an idea as she motioned in her direction. Half tempted to pretend she wasn’t paying attention, Raquel conceded with a sigh and joined them near the workstation. “Take Murillo with you,” Alicia ordered with a smirk. “Yesterday, you were so proud you found his hangar last time, weren’t you? Prove your instincts are still that good and find that bastard.”</p>
<p>She shivered at the thought of spending hours alone in a car with Angel — and away from a position where she could diffuse Tamayo’s anger — but Raquel knew she was in no position to argue. Outside of her detonating Tamayo’s constant bombs, she had no legitimate excuse to protest, and doing so would only arouse suspicion. “Fine.”</p>
<p>Her absence also took away the Professor’s ear inside the tent. With Angel and herself on his trail and no way to know what Tamayo and Sierra were planning, the Professor occupied even more of a vulnerable position. Hopefully, he was listening now and wouldn’t be caught completely off guard when he went deaf.</p>
<p>She didn’t want to think about what her jittery nerves at those thoughts meant for her decision to join him.</p>
<p>“When was the last time we went on a road trip together?” Angel joked once they were out of the tent, climbing into his work car. “Feels just like old times, doesn’t it?”</p>
<p>Raquel fought to maintain a neutral expression as she clicked on her seatbelt. “Sure does.”</p>
<p>It couldn’t be farther from old times. Now, she had seen all of the system’s flaws for what they were, and she felt like an outsider looking in on a foreign land that had once been her home. Oblivious to the growing distance between them, Angel next to her was a mirror of herself three years ago — still idealistic and believing what the force was doing was for the greater good. Maybe that was why their work relationship struggled to pick up from where it left off: because they fought for two different perceptions of justice.</p>
<p>Fortunately, as Angel set off toward the southern provinces, he allowed the radio to drown out any attempt at conversation. A small light in all of this was that they shared similar music tastes, and the radio station he’d chosen played more than one Van Morrison song. She closed her eyes and ignored the task at hand, leaning into the window and the familiarity of driving through the Spanish countryside with her former partner, in theory like the old times Angel referenced.</p>
<p>She fell into a daze, vision blurring the fields and mountains surrounding them, conserving her energy for later. Raquel had almost started to doze off after an hour when Angel’s voice stirred her from her reverie, and she let out a soft hum as she straightened up in her seat.</p>
<p>“So have you really heard nothing from him?”</p>
<p>The words took a moment to register, and Raquel let out a disbelieving laugh. Of course he continued to press this question — only now, her patience was thinner, and she knew better than to assume he asked from a position of friendly curiosity. It had never been about wanting to know what was going on in her life; it was always about taking down the Professor.</p>
<p>“What’s your goal?” Raquel demanded. “Why are you doing this?”</p>
<p>A few seconds passed in silence, and she rolled her eyes as she took it as his intention not to respond. He surprised her a moment later with a dejected sigh, shaking his head. “No lo sé, no lo sé…”</p>
<p>“I’m not conspiring with him against you all, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Technically, this wasn’t a lie, but the careful position of neutrality she tried to maintain for the time being had never been more endangered. Each biting question or pointed remark she shot back at Angel was almost something of a challenge — for him to prove to her why she shouldn’t take their side, despite her fear of losing everything.</p>
<p>“I never accused you of that,” Angel tried to laugh off, clearly unsure what to say as he struggled for a better response.</p>
<p>“No, but you’re suspicious. You asked me the same thing when you asked to meet up right around the time they captured Cortes.” Her accusation was subtle, but it grew clearer as her next question attempted to determine the full extent of his involvement. “Did you know what they were doing to him, Angel?”</p>
<p>He hesitated, as if he wanted to respond then began to reconsider his words. Eventually, he sighed and conceded, “I had my suspicions.”</p>
<p>So he did. It was close enough to an affirmative answer that her stomach sank, and she pursed her lips as she nodded slowly. She’d known Angel would have been involved to a certain degree, but he didn’t seem fazed at all by it. Angel had never been able to separate what was right from what was codified in law, and because Cortes was an obstacle to the ultimate justice of taking down the Professor, he ignored it. He was complicit in their crimes.</p>
<p>If Angel was complicit for doing nothing, what would that say about her if she chose to remain neutral and refused to help either side?</p>
<p>The question drew another invisible line in the sand and placed Raquel firmly on a new side, reflecting a new perception of justice. Raquel no longer sat comfortably on the line between the police and the Professor, because now that this case removed her blindfold to the worst of the state’s actions, her conscience couldn’t allow her to help them clean up from the repercussions of those actions. Complicity was no longer an option, despite the risks posed in secretly challenging the system.</p>
<p>In joining the Professor, Raquel risked everything. But she <em> wanted </em> to work with him, and the small, nagging voice of her instinct reminded her of how meticulous he was; it had been one of the most endearing things about him. From what she had seen — the caution in sending messages inside paper cranes, Marseille passing messages instead of herself, and deleting her communication inside a voice message from her phone — the Professor seemed not to let any evidence slip through the cracks. Granted, any of her colleagues might overhear her sending a message or using the emergency phone, but preventing that was her responsibility, not his. And she trusted herself to avoid suspicion a hell of a lot more than she trusted anyone else.</p>
<p>That was it. It was time to stop focusing whether she could trust the Professor to get herself out of a bad situation and start focusing on trusting herself. Raquel wasn’t careless, and there was no reason for Tamayo or Prieto to suspect anything unless they dug to the bottom of her bag, where she’d stashed the emergency phone in a secret pouch. Caution on her part didn’t eliminate the risks, but it did lower them — and with the safeguards the Professor had in place, perhaps even to a level she was comfortable accepting.</p>
<p>The day before, Alicia Sierra wormed her way into Raquel’s ears, planting the seeds of doubt that had made her question her own instincts with facts that misrepresented the truth. It was similar to the manipulation tactics Alberto used to distort her perceptions of reality and memories of moments he was particularly aggressive, and she wondered how she could’ve let Alicia set the same traps for her after all the work she’d done in rebuilding her confidence in herself, in her instincts. And her instincts were a stubborn jab in her side that refused to let her consider anything but helping the Professor, because he was <em> right </em> to steal the gold to rescue someone important to him and to denounce the state’s crimes.</p>
<p>Her mind had swung back and forth on this issue so many times after receiving the postcards in the café yesterday, and she needed to take charge and stop the pendulum herself. The uncertainty was dizzying, and Raquel had started to stop doubting the persistent feeling that she couldn’t sit back and watch while Alicia Sierra worked to kill all the robbers, including one she had already tortured.</p>
<p>She’d used her final hesitation as ammunition at the end of her message last night, because proving why she should want him to win was a matter of getting over the dull stab to her heart each time she remembered the non-professional implications of joining his side. Even if she restricted her involvement to helping the heist, she put herself in a position for him to hurt her again, because his sudden reappearance in her life unravelled a lot of the work she had done to heal from his original wounds. He may never have <em> intended </em> to hurt her through silence, but the execution of his attempts at communications fell short, and he’d hurt her all the same.</p>
<p>Working with the Professor meant working with Sergio, but he had already reopened the wounds. The only way forward was to take the time to heal them again, and she couldn’t do that if she chose neutrality and knowingly ignored his attempts to reach out. Getting over the pain, she realized, was something she would have to work toward again, but he had presented her a partial cure on a silver platter — a way to air her grievances without his interruptions. The voice memo last night <em> had </em> undoubtedly been cathartic. </p>
<p>For the first time since receiving the postcards, Raquel’s stance stood on solid ground. Alicia Sierra could attack it with accusations of her instincts gone bad, but the original question of trust those accusations had raised no longer mattered, nor did her own grief and bitterness that she could no longer let blind her. Her instincts spoke louder than Alicia’s words, driving her to join the Professor because it was right, because she needed to heal.</p>
<p>As her eyes were glued to the window, body angled away from Angel, the trees they passed sharpened into focus. A soft smile curved at her lips as she let herself relax in the comfort of finally knowing where she stood. Counting the cows in the fields they passed, she eventually drifted off to a nap, recovering some of the energy lost during last night’s restless sleep. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>As a final note just in case, Raquel being there isn't meant to be an insta-fix for everything in canon - her involvement might seem too good to be true, but that won't necessarily always be the case :') The only shameless "perfect fix" here is her stopping Arturo, because Amanda and Monica deserve better.</p>
<p>Again, thank you for reading, and I'd love to hear what you think about this chapter :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. vi. they are the hunters, we are the foxes (and we run)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>While Raquel and Angel search for the Professor, Alicia plots. Raquel deals with the implications of switching sides.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hellooo we are back with an update! Thank you all so much for your continued support through comments and kudos; I love hearing your thoughts on the story, and your kind words warm my heart 🥺💕 one of my biggest insecurities coming into this fic was hating my writing style, so to read that some of you like it means more than I can explain 💕 also, I finally got around to responding to many of the old comments on this, so I'm sorry for spacing that for so long, and thanks for bearing with me 🙈 I'm going to try to be better about that! </p><p>The song for this chapter is I Know Places by Taylor Swift: https://open.spotify.com/track/2zfgVd034GlUvk7LqBHl6u?si=T19oaQrERqKFrFJM2D8wbQ - 10/10 recommend for epicentro scene vibes.</p><p>Thanks for continuing to stick with me through this, and I hope this one makes up for the slowness of the last chapter as things start heating up! Hope you all enjoy, and as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts 💕</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Day 3</b>
</p><p>
  <b>Madrid, 08:00</b>
</p><p>There was a different air to the tent that morning as Alicia sauntered inside, almost one of <em> freedom </em> — because with the pacifist and her personal defense squad of a partner away on a useless search for the Professor somewhere in the south, no one stood between her and all the plans brewing in her mind. Tamayo could try, but he was too easy to appease. All she had to do was dangle her ways to dismantle the Professor’s strongest weapon before him, and he would give in to whatever she hoped to accomplish.</p><p>The profile of one of the robbers provided another avenue, as it wouldn’t be difficult to rescue her son from his adoptive family for one afternoon. Somewhere in the evidence lockers at one of the precincts in Madrid, his stuffed bear became another key element of her plan to destabilize the gang inside the bank and earn the upper hand. All of the pieces were falling into place, but one last piece was missing — Tamayo’s approval. <em> Only </em> because the stroke he might have wasn’t worth launching a plan without warning.</p><p>“Colonel, I have a plan.” Tamayo hovered over maps of the area Murillo and Rubio had already searched as Alicia approached the table.</p><p>“Alicia, we’re not going in,” he insisted without looking up from the pages.</p><p>Tamayo was too preoccupied with Murillo’s impassioned anti-interventionist arguments to see reason or to see the clear path before them, a clean way in if they were careful. The appeals to his fear made Alicia’s usual strategies of persuasion useless. So long as fear of consequences paralyzed him, they had reached a stalemate. And Alicia intended to fix it. Without Murillo to bat off any attempted attack simply because she had grown fond of the criminals inside the bank — and their leader, too — the police would regain the upper hand.</p><p>“You’re worried about the secrets, right?” She challenged, wearing a smirk she knew he didn’t notice. “Because we’re screwed if even one of the documents gets out? Because we might all end up in prison?” The words finally made Tamayo look up from the maps, and he nodded begrudgingly. His glare didn’t intimidate her — in fact, it fuelled her, and she let out a bright laugh. “So let’s take away the ace up his sleeve!”</p><p>“What the hell do you think Rubio and Murillo are trying to do right now?”</p><p>Alicia laughed again, and Tamayo straightened to his full height, crossing his arms to his chest and glowering at her. “We can’t wait for them. Murillo isn’t as good as she once was.” She shrugged. “I’m not proposing we steal them from him, but we can disarm him. Leak our own secrets to the press.”</p><p>“Are you <em> insane </em>, Sierra?” Tamayo demanded, shaking his head while pushing Alicia aside to march toward the screens near the side of the command tent. Alicia followed, matching his pace. “We can’t expose government officials,” he insisted when she didn’t give up. “They’ll have our heads.”</p><p>“Ah, but will they?” An eyebrow raised, smirk widening. “Think about it. The press will have to verify the facts, but everyone will have an alibi in place, yes? You weren’t meeting in secret with a terrorist cell if you can prove you were at a conference that weekend. By the time the Professor tries to leak the real secrets, the press will be too overwhelmed to tell truth from lies, and the information can’t protect him anymore.” Tamayo gave her another skeptical look, which prompted her to continue with greater urgency, “We have to do something, Colonel. This keeps our hands clean and opens up more doors for us here.”</p><p>Tamayo hesitated, coming to a stop in front of the screens. He studied the image captured by the cameras outside the bank, although the sight hadn’t changed in hours. The unmoving image taunted him, and Alicia knew he was itching to strike at them. “What are you planning?”</p><p>The resignation in his tone signaled she had won this battle, and she waved a hand through the air, grinning triumphantly. “Don’t worry about it, I have it under control. We’ll send fake secrets to the media once the next plan is in motion, yes?”</p><p>“Fine, but I want to know all the details of the plan before you launch anything.”</p><p>“Claro que sí.” Turning to face the rest of the tent, she clasped her hands together. The sharp sound that echoed caught the attention of many under her command — except the one person she wanted to do her bidding. “ANTOÑANZAS! Get me more donuts and gum.” Startled at the sudden exclamation in his direction, the officer nodded fervently and hastened to follow her orders. </p><p>Alicia sank into a seat at a table to position the actors in her next move. She held all the control with Murillo out of the way, given that Tamayo was so easily swayed, and balance was restored to her command again. Bringing her old friend in on the case was more of a nuisance than she ever could have imagined. Each time Raquel talked Tamayo down from making any moves against the Professor and his band of loser criminals, the longer it would take to end it all. They couldn’t afford a bloodbath, no, but Murillo was almost <em> too </em> careful. More than the former inspector usually was.</p><p>Raquel also proved to be less of a bomb to unsettle the Professor than she’d hoped, now that she thought of it — almost as if he had expected her to join. The Professor was <em> sometimes </em> intelligent enough on his own to have thought of such a plan, but Alicia wouldn’t put it past Raquel to have forewarned him. After a bizarre tension between the two reunited lovers in the recording of his first call to the tent, he hadn’t seemed surprised to hear from her. </p><p>When she looked at it from that angle, Murillo’s resistance to any attack juxtaposed next to the Professor’s collected composure, it was easy to suspect that he had already recruited her for his team — a mole. Now <em> that </em> was just the sort of arrogant behavior she expected from the man who came back to steal the country’s gold after printing a billion euros for himself. Of course, Raquel had always been blinded by the men in her life — the worst ones, too, between a man who beat her and an awkward loser who happened to be the most wanted man in Spain — so lingering feelings for him might also explain her actions, although that was pure speculation at that point. Yet she couldn’t completely rule out subconscious attempts to protect him.</p><p>Passing off the task of locating Axel Jimenez’s new parents to Antoñanzas when he delivered her donuts and gum, Alicia split her attention between the next phase of her plan and investigating an intriguing new element to the case: Murillo’s loyalties. Sending someone to retrieve a new cell phone and the boy’s old bear from the evidence lockers was a simple task, but proving her suspicions against Raquel less so. Alicia needed to lay a trap, but that would first require getting her back to Madrid.</p><p>Everything would fall into place, though. All in due time.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Near Huelva, 08:00</b>
</p><p>The night had passed largely in silence, after a few dead ends dried up around three in the morning. Angel had pulled over at a rest area to give them a few hours to breathe without sacrificing the ability to jump back into the hunt, if somehow a new lead popped up in the early hours of the morning. Her partner drifted off for a while, but nerves once again condemned her to a restless night. By the time the sun rose, it felt like she had only slept minutes.</p><p>Still somewhat groggy from a night spent in a car, they got off to a slow start that morning, but the station in Huelva offered a chance to regroup with Tamayo and a few trusted officers that he knew there. Around 8, as Raquel gazed out the window to study the fields they had already reached a few kilometres past city limits, Angel’s ringtone startled her back into the present.</p><p>“Inspector Rubio.” Angel clenched his jaw and stole a glance in Raquel’s direction as he accepted the call, then seemed to glare at the barren expanse of road ahead of him. “Buenos días, Inspector Vicuña.” </p><p>When he was met by a half-enraged, half-panicked glare, he leaned forward to press a button that would broadcast the call over the car’s speaker. Raquel relaxed a little in her seat.</p><p>“Listen, Colonel Prieto told me he’s got you looking for that coward Professor in the south. I think I might have a lead on that.”</p><p>Angel and Raquel’s eyes widened simultaneously — for entirely different reasons.</p><p>“I’ve been near Huelva for a few days, and a caravan trailed me two days in a row. I ran the plates, but they aren’t registered to anyone.”</p><p>“They stationed you near Huelva?” That did seem odd, but the department had been known to assign cases under other jurisdictions if they thought someone’s expertise was of use. Regrettably, Alberto <em> was </em> the best in forensics.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Then why—”</p><p>“It’s not your business to pry into my personal affairs, Inspector Rubio.” His tone, authoritative and cold, sent a shiver down Raquel’s spine. In place of those words, she could hear the echoes of similar attempts to shut her down in the days leading up to their divorce, when a single question provoked a violent reaction. In those days, Alberto fended off questions that would have revealed his plans to become involved with her sister much sooner. If her gut had been right then, his current plans suggested something more sinister. Shivering, she wrapped her hands around her arms.</p><p>“Gracias. We’ll check it out.”</p><p>“We’ll?” There was a pause on the other end as Alberto processed the information. “Oh, right. Buenos días Inspectora Murillo — or can I still call you that after your resignation?”</p><p>Her lips pressed into a thin smile that contained some of the anger brimming under the surface. “Inspectora Sierra called me in to negotiate, so as far as I’m concerned, I am. Goodbye, Inspector Vicuña.” Before Angel could protest, Raquel shot out to end the call, stabbing the button sharply. As she reclined in her seat, her fingers knitted together, nails carving imprints in her skin with the force of the irritation she tried to hold back.</p><p>“Are you alright?” Worry shone in Angel’s tone and the pitying look he gave her, and it was all she could do not to roll her eyes.</p><p>“I’m fine.”</p><p>Silence fell between them again, but it was broken when a notification pinged on his phone a moment later, the sound of the GPS guiding them to the location Alberto sent.</p><p>Raquel wanted to know what the hell her ex-husband had been doing in Huelva that was such a guarded secret, yet a different worry drowned out her suspicions; more than anything, she wanted to warn the Professor they were on his tail. Marseille had promised they would only activate her phone microphone in the tent, but she hoped they broke that promise. Otherwise, she feared her reunion with Sergio would be under much different circumstances than either of them expected.</p><p>She should have passed along her message already, but danger around every corner made her hesitate. Spending the night in a cramped police car with an officer who snored loudly was a less than pleasant experience, and she hadn’t wanted to risk him waking up and interrogating her for answers she couldn’t provide — if not hearing her and turning her in immediately. Sighing, Raquel glanced around the car for anything to use to her advantage. The gas metre teetered near empty, and really, they should have stopped much sooner. <em> There we go. </em></p><p>“Hey, maybe we should fill up again before we go on a high speed chase after an international criminal?” Her eyes shone through her teasing comment; it was easy enough to convince Angel that she was genuine.</p><p>“Good idea,” her partner agreed, and he pulled over at the next exit to refill his car.</p><p>“I’m going to go grab coffee and a breakfast bar, do you want anything?” Raquel unbuckled her seatbelt and rose from the car, sliding her bag over her shoulder.</p><p>“Whatever you grab for yourself works.” She reciprocated the appreciative smile Angel flashed in her direction as he spoke before turning away toward the small convenience store.</p><p>Instead of going straight for the doors, Raquel veered off to the side close to a patch of trees on the edge of the road where no cars had parked. She first reached for her own phone, then paused. If they were as close to him as she feared, waiting for a voice memo to reach him was too risky. Unzipping the compartment at the bottom of her purse, she pulled out the emergency phone. Her thundering heartbeat drowned out the sound of the buttons she clicked to dial the only contact inside.</p><p>“Hello?” She spoke tentatively, barely above a whisper.</p><p>“Hello, Lisbon.”</p><p>The same low intonation as yesterday unsettled her, but in a way that also intrigued her. She swallowed thickly, brushing a hand through her hair, frowning when she met the resistance of a few tangles. “I just… you should know that we’re near Huelva. My ex-husband saw a caravan in the area twice, and it made a sharp turn yesterday. He sent us the coordinates of a garage to investigate.”</p><p>There was a sharp inhale then a brief silence on the other end, broken by a shaky sigh. “Noted.”</p><p>Teeth sinking into her lips, she wondered what the response suggested about his current location. Maybe it had nothing to do with his location at all, and instead with the unfamiliar dance of a personal conversation between them for the first time in so long. It felt strangely <em> intimate </em> to connect to him without the prying ears of her colleagues, and with his almost <em> nervous </em> presence on the other end of the line, able to respond immediately. If the weight of her current task didn’t hang heavily over her shoulders, it might have felt like they were Salva and Raquel again, maneuvering shyly through a conversation between two people who understood each other immediately. </p><p>She stopped her racing mind from analyzing the situation any further, as her time before Angel would be expecting her back at the car was limited. Clearing her throat, she started. “I just wanted to let you know—”</p><p>“Raquel? Everything alright over there?”</p><p>She cursed under her breath at the sight of Angel approaching, and she nodded fervently. “Just checking in with Laura. She’s looking after Paula for me while I work this case.”</p><p>“Oh. In that case, tell her I say hi.” He looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to finish the call and join him, and Raquel realized with a sinking feeling she would not be able to end the call like she had wanted. </p><p>Surely the Professor knew she wanted to join his side now — but it was Sergio who seemed to be listening on the other end, not his confident alter-ego, and he needed that clarity.</p><p>“Angel says hi. I’ve got to go.” Without waiting for a response, Raquel clicked off the phone and stuffed it back in her bag, hidden behind a zipper that protected her less than she liked. The Professor would likely have wanted her to destroy the device, but the hunt was only starting, and danger stared back every way she looked. It was more useful to her as a lifeline thrown back to the Professor, despite its potential as evidence against her.</p><p>She took a few moments to collect herself before going back, coffee and breakfast forgotten with the anxious feeling that settled in her stomach.</p><p>“I went ahead and grabbed some snacks and coffees while you were finishing up.” Angel handed her a travel mug as she approached the car, which she accepted with a polite smile.</p><p>“Oh. Gracias,” she spoke, forcing herself to take a sip as she stepped into the car. At least the caffeine would help her wake up and restore some of the energy lost in another night of little sleep.</p><p>Angel joined her, setting his mug inside the cup holder as the car doors slammed shut. “I let Tamayo know we have a lead. He’s sending in drones to scan the area. He also ordered Suarez and his team to the south last night on standby, but they’re near Seville.”</p><p>Raquel froze, lips touching the rim of her lid, and if she had gone for a sip of coffee just a second earlier, she might have blown her cover. No matter how much of a lead her warning gave the Professor, the drones were quicker and could easily catch him. Coupled with two men with a vengeance toward him, Raquel had little power to divert the search away from him, especially when she had no idea where he was or which areas the drones covered.</p><p>“We should finish this soon, then,” she finally commented, hoping her statement would eventually be inaccurate.</p><p>“Hopefully, yeah?”</p><p>The smile she gave him this time was weak, which she’d blame on the exhaustion if he questioned it — not entirely a lie. Alternating between bites of a cereal bar and sips of her coffee, Raquel gradually restored some of her energy. Her nerves hadn’t all gone away, but they spoke quieter now, as confidence that she might be able to steer the investigation away from the Professor grew louder. If they found something inside the garage, maybe their investigation would stall and earn him some time.</p><p>Although she felt better in some ways, none of it was enough to drown out the deep-seated feeling of dread that crept up on her about what was to come. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Somewhere between Seville and Guillena, 08:30</b>
</p><p>Cramped in the small space of the ambulance, Sergio glanced between the few screens this space afforded him. Despite having prepared for the inevitability of transferring to the emergency vehicle, he had preferred the spacious command centre in the caravan. He clicked absently between the screens able to fit inside the ambulance, more irritated than expected to have to click between camera views to get a full picture of the operation inside and outside the bank. For whatever reason, it was oddly suffocating.</p><p>Part of the irritation undoubtedly stemmed from another sleepless night spent fixated on the screens and the origami cranes that piled up in an already sizable mountain in his new base. The tension building in his shoulders and clenched jaw were a product of remaining alert through the late hours of the night, watching for the slightest threat to his location, to the team inside the bank, to Raquel.</p><p>After transferring to the ambulance in an abandoned warehouse, Sergio had driven a safe distance away from the car that may suspect him, stopping an hour away in a wooded area near Seville. Should the car track down the garage where he’d had to quickly abandon the caravan, the report would go to the authorities in Huelva, which was far enough to buy him time to gain ground on the inevitably search party that would follow.</p><p>The back roads led through a forest that provided adequate cover for the night, a secluded area away from most travellers. The thickness of the trees and the low probability of anyone driving down such a rarely used road served as his shield as he tried — futilely — to sleep for a few hours.</p><p>With the sun rose the need to relocate, and Sergio was just finishing changing into a new suit for the day when a phone rang, immobilizing him as his heartbeat picked up. After a few seconds, he snapped into the present and grabbed the device linked to the emergency phone Marseille had given Raquel, pressing a button and pausing to verify that it was her on the other end. The hand that held the phone trembled, too slight to notice, in the fear of her <em> already </em> being endangered because of his selfish insistence to bring her to his side simply because the hole she’d carved in his heart ached.</p><p>He realized just in time that Sergio’s concern made the Professor’s focus waver, and with a deep breath, he slipped into the Professor’s mindset again. He had recruited her because her passion against injustice belonged on his team, not inside the command tent. That he still loved her was a minor detail to ignore. He had to trust all the logic and reason that went into crafting his version of his brother’s plan, not emotions he felt in the moment.</p><p>In the moments it took Raquel to explain that it was her bastard of an ex-husband who had seen him yesterday, his mind calculated a thousand probabilities of the impending sequence of events given his current situation. Surely, if Alberto had alerted Angel and Raquel, he didn’t intend to follow Sergio himself — still, the chance that he lurked in the area and waited for any opportunity to pounce meant that he needed to <em> move, </em> and quickly.</p><p>He allowed himself less than a moment of relief that she was alright as he scrambled back to the driver’s seat in the ambulance, though the feeling washed away in wake of a growing panic at the dizzying reality that his position was more fragile than ever, which may threaten Raquel.</p><p>As the ambulance accelerated down the empty road, adrenaline surged through his veins, and in his laser-sharp focus on the road ahead, he forced the Professor’s side of his mind to drown out Sergio’s worries once more. He could only ensure Raquel’s safety if his own wasn’t betrayed, and to do so required trusting her to take care of herself and focusing on increasing the distance between the ambulance and the inevitable fleet of police vehicles that would follow if they ever realized how far he had gotten from Huelva. Maintaining the ambulance’s speed for twenty minutes on back roads winding through the woods, his stomach turned with the curves in the road.</p><p>Eventually, the path led to an area that seemed neglected by conservation efforts. Unkempt trees lined the road, branches jutting out into his path, which created a maze he had to weave through to simultaneously avoid overhead surveillance in the thinning tree cover and being impaled by any stray branches.</p><p>Of those possibilities, the latter was more appealing — and yet Sergio cursed loudly as he noticed a protruding branch too late to prevent it from knocking the antenna from the roof of the ambulance. Skidding to a stop, he jumped out and swept the antenna from the dusty ground, not bothering to reattach it given the mounting pressure to return to a road with more tree cover hanging overhead.</p><p>As he rose to get back in the ambulance, a brief glance stolen at the sky confirmed his fears: Tamayo had ordered drones to survey the area, and they covered the expanse as far as Seville.</p><p>And it stalled in the air, hovering overhead — it had seen him.</p><p>The next few minutes passed in a mindless flash: he drove the ambulance straight into the trees in an area where the forest was more dense, shrugged on the emergency backpack and swapped his suit for camouflage, and launched the <em> epicentro </em> phase of his emergency plan.</p><p>Sergio gasped for air as he bolted in the opposite direction of the vehicle as it continued on, the air crushed from his lungs under his desperation to escape. His mind went blank, leaving no room for panic to overwhelm the rhythm of a plan ingrained in muscle memory. Throwing his bag against a tree, he crouched in front of it and sprayed the base to cover up any last trace of his scent.</p><p>Then he climbed, climbed <em> higher, </em> not satisfied until he had reached a point several metres above the ground. The extra leaves pulled from his emergency pack to blend in with the tree completed his disguise, minimizing the chances that police dogs or more overhead drones would detect him. The epicentro plan was air tight.</p><p>Even still, as Sergio caught his breath while casting his gaze out over the forest floor on alert for the officers who’d be sent to catch him, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his luck had finally started to run out.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Near San Juan del Puerto, 09:00</b>
</p><p>The coordinates Alberto sent brought them to a neglected dirt path off the highway near San Juan del Puerto, a short distance from their overnight base in Huelva. While Suarez and his team commanded aerial surveillance via drones from his post in Seville, Raquel and Angel investigated the caravan abandoned inside a dusty, deteriorating garage. </p><p>She didn’t need any definitive evidence to confirm that this was the Professor’s original command center. The slight panic in his reaction to her warning was proof enough that Alberto’s suspicions were correct — but the dark screens and various control panels that transformed a living space into a command center was the concrete evidence they needed to pursue the Professor. </p><p>Traces of his fingerprints on the surfaces he’d touched still condemned him, but otherwise, he had wiped all evidence of his presence, as if a ghost had occupied the space.</p><p>Somewhere, though, the Professor continued to evade capture, but it was only a matter of time before the police’s gaze caught up to him. A lump formed in her throat at the thought, but she swatted it out of mind with a sharp exhale.</p><p>She continued to explore the caravan, brushing her fingers along a control panel whose buttons didn’t respond as she pressed one or another. The screens were similarly unresponsive without electricity, and although she considered the possibility of hacking into the wires to start the ignition, she tucked away that idea. </p><p>After scoping out the exterior of the caravan, Angel joined her on the inside and repeated the futile attempts to turn on any of the devices. As he let out an exasperated sigh and glanced her way, she merely shrugged. “You didn’t really think he’d make it easy on us, did you?”</p><p>Angel sighed again, rubbing the nape of his neck with his hand. “No, I guess not.”</p><p>A smile flickered across her lips as she continued her surface-level investigation, and she peered over her shoulder to ensure her partner’s back was turned away before opening a drawer with as little noise as she could. Not <em> all </em> traces of the Professor were gone, it seemed; Raquel knew better than to give into the temptation to stash some of the unfolded red origami paper stored inside. Instead, she silently closed the drawer with the same gentle force.</p><p>Raquel turned to the next set of controls, but before she could resume her covert investigation of a compartment near the main panel, Angel’s shrill ringtone cut through the quiet that had enveloped the scene.</p><p>She froze in place, eyes darting to study her partner as he accepted the call. Angel’s back was still turned away from her, allowing for a faint relief that contrasted against the fear that inevitably gripped her again. Raquel returned to her efforts after a moment, opening the compartment that had intrigued her before. Upon discovering it empty, she let out a soft, disappointed hum before shutting it.</p><p>“That was Suarez,” Angel told her, shoving his phone back in his pocket. “We have to go, a drone picked up something near Guillena. The forensics team can handle this.”</p><p>Her breath caught in her throat at the revelation, but she managed to cover it up with a smirk that resembled Alicia Sierra’s satisfaction more than Raquel Murillo’s rising panic. “Let’s end this, then.”</p><p>Angel started out the caravan before her, striding back toward his car with an urgency that she couldn’t share. There was already too much at stake for the police to catch him now, as a deeper look into his operations implicated her on his side, even if she had never given a proper agreement. All the evidence spelled out her commitment to him, and any detective with the slightest bit of sense could see that — after all, from the moment she stepped inside the command tent in front of the bank, her pacifist arguments benefited the Professor. And if they discovered the emergency phone that made a call to one of his just minutes before a drone spotted him, no jury would go easy on her. </p><p>As the car led them through winding back roads to Suarez and his soldiers, Raquel felt like they were embarking on a hunt for herself, not just the man behind the heist — and if Tamayo and Sierra got their way, her head would be mounted for display right next to his.</p><p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. vii. take a walk through the wreckage</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sergio launches plans as Raquel and Angel search the forest. Raquel examines a car wreck. Secrets come to light, and Raquel struggles to process a shocking revelation.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hi friends, I'm finally back! I had writer's block for a week trying to describe sitting in a tree before deciding to scrap a full scene, so that's where we're at (and part of why I took another 2.5 weeks) 😂 thank you for your continued support for the story via comments and kudos and tweets - it means so much to see people care 💕</p><p>the song for this chapter is Joy by Bastille: https://open.spotify.com/track/6Tt1P5CLUrl59oSOTVxON0?si=o-DShnUpSXyvzh-R-8ihTg &amp; an honorable mention for a chapter title from the song is "joy, when you call me" ;)</p><p>thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the update!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Near Guillena, 09:30</b>
</p><p>The journey to Suarez’s base stretched on for hours, although the dashboard clock indicated only minutes had passed. During most of the trip, Raquel stared numbly out the window, unable to concentrate on anything other than the persistent fear they would arrive too late to stop Suarez from killing the Professor. It was difficult to imagine a scenario the Professor <em> hadn’t </em> prepared for, but it was impossible to discount entirely the strength of Suarez’s vengeance-fuelled determination to track him down. No amount of advance preparation could stop a bullet aimed square at his chest. </p><p>Angel’s car shook under the bumps of fallen branches on the path other police vehicles had carved through the woods to the clearing where Suarez had set up an operation site. They arrived not long after the others, and the animated, tense energy of the worksite enveloped Angel and Raquel as they climbed out of his car.</p><p>Suarez stood in front of the abandoned ambulance, head bent down at a tablet screen. Raquel briefly glimpsed the ambulance hurtling down its path through the woods, but as Suarez noticed their arrival, he gave a brief nod and locked the tablet’s screen. A barely perceptible frown curved on her lips at the sudden blackness.</p><p>“What’s the plan?” In light of his earlier eagerness to examine the caravan, Angel’s enthusiasm to hunt down the Professor — as close as they were now — came as no surprise. Raquel stood at his side, folding her arms to her chest.</p><p>“We’ve got teams of Civil Guards searching the area,” Suarez explained, motioning to the clusters of guards advancing toward the trees. “He can’t have gone far. And the dogs will get him.” A malicious grin and the red paper crane he snatched from Angel — probably taken earlier from the caravan — sealed that promise.</p><p>On one side of the forest, the drones that still circled the sky prevented the Professor from escaping under the tree cover. On the other, packs of Civil Guards with dogs following his unmistakable scent lowered his chances of staying hidden for long. They had backed him into a corner, and time was running out. But this was the Professor — the same man who cleaned up evidence of a crime and fled in disguise under her nose, who hid from her in plain sight under the character of Salva, who escaped Spain while every border and airport and port was under maximum surveillance. He would find a way. Believing otherwise would lead her down a dangerous path away from the composure Raquel had to maintain under the scrutiny of colleagues searching around every corner for something to use against her.</p><p>“I want you searching the whole damn forest!” Angel ordered the soldiers while Suarez passed the paper crane in front of all the police dogs. “Not a corner should go unsearched! Search every building! Vamos!”</p><p>At Angel’s expectant look in her direction, Raquel nodded, following him toward the edge of the trees where they could better survey the groups of officers who ventured deeper into the woods in all directions, covering every inch of the forest. Suarez approached them with three leashes, and after accepting hers, Raquel began to lead her dog some distance behind the latest group that had started to head north. Suarez turned away to lead a different group, leaving Raquel and Angel to explore on their own. </p><p>Raquel gripped the leash in her hand so tightly her knuckles turned white, and the stinging sensation of the fabric digging into her hand grounded her in the present as nerves threatened to keep her mind elsewhere. She focused on cataloguing details of the forest rather than searching for signs of a man’s futile attempt to hide — the echo as some twigs snapped beneath her boots, the quick movements of the police dogs sniffing around every rock and tree base, the crisp spring air refreshing her skin, the concerned looks Angel flashed her every so often.</p><p>“What?” Raquel huffed when the same apprehension met her the third time she glanced his way.</p><p>“Nothing, nothing,” Angel attempted to bluff with an unconvincing shrug.</p><p>“Mmm.” It was clear she didn’t believe him, but she made no effort to continue, knowing it was only a matter of time before he caved to curiosity.</p><p>Sure enough, he broke the silence after a few minutes passed, closing some of the distance between them. “You got to know him pretty well, I’d say,” he cleared his throat awkwardly, “so where do you think he’d go?”</p><p>Raquel didn’t fight the urge to roll her eyes, and she shook her head. Revealing her confidence in his ability to escape was out of the question, so her response became a delicate game of choosing which thoughts to reveal. “No lo sé… if I were him, I’d want to get as far away as possible in the shortest amount of time.” And knowing the Professor, he’d have come up with some miracle transportation to escape from under the police’s nose again. If that were the case — and she hoped it was — it didn’t matter how far they searched, he would always be ahead. The perfect representation of his relationship with the authorities so far.</p><p>Another possibility did intrigue her, one too dangerous to mention aloud. A wounded diver knew better than to linger in shark-infested waters, but the thought was so insane that it was exactly the sort of plan the Professor would try to execute — and surely something would have caught his attempt to escape by now, successful or not. Her eyes wandered toward the sky as they continued their trek through the forest, as if the tops of the trees contained the answers she sought.</p><p>Just as she was about to look away, in a tree ahead, the leaves of a branch a few metres from the ground shuddered ever so slightly — almost as if disturbed by the force of her curiosity. Raquel blinked, ready to dismiss the sight as nothing more than a trick of the light, her mind looking too closely for a sign that wasn’t there. The leaves stilled a moment later, confirming her mind’s deception and dashing any hope that they had just strolled right past the Professor’s hiding spot.</p><p>The pair continued in relative silence for several minutes as they failed to uncover any leads. The sniffing dogs and snapping twigs created a monotonous background that filtered out distractions, numbing her mind to everything but the details of whichever rock or tree base the dog she led decided to sniff next. Her gaze moved sharply from tree to tree, but Raquel hoped the search would continue to reach dead ends.</p><p>After a while, a few blurry figures began to materialize in the distance, disrupting the unchanging scene before them. Raquel gave Suarez a brief nod in greeting as she and Angel approached him and the team he led.</p><p>“Any news?” Angel asked.</p><p>Suarez shook his head. “Nothing yet. Something’s off.”</p><p>Angel nodded and opened his mouth as if to agree, but his ringtone drowned out the beginnings of a response. He fished his phone from his pocket and scanned the screen. “It’s Tamayo,” he spoke, running a hand through his hair as he accepted the call. His brow furrowed deeper with each second that passed, but the puzzled look he flashed his companions revealed nothing. “Are you sure? It may be another trap.” Raquel’s stomach sank in her chest, and she fought to maintain a look of casual intrigue over the worry that gripped her inside. “Alright, we’ll head out soon.”</p><p>Suarez wasted no time before leaping to ask, “What was that?”</p><p>“We have to go,” Angel spoke abruptly, not waiting for a response from either before turning back in the direction of the vehicles they’d left. Raquel matched the urgency in his long strides, trailing just behind despite her shorter legs. “I don’t know how he did it, but he called the tent just to taunt them about his escape. Somehow, his signal is tracing back to the highway, going north toward Madrid…” </p><p>Raquel masked her relief at his escape behind a somewhat genuine look of confusion. How had he managed to escape with officers and dogs crawling through every corner of the woods? And how did he plan to stay ahead with Tamayo ordering them on his trail again?</p><p>The pieces didn’t add up, leaving Raquel to sift through the facts of the past few hours as she made her way back to the ambulance alongside Angel and Suarez. Normally, she trusted that the Professor would manage to swerve away from a close call with the authorities — but something about this felt off.</p><p>And what worried her more than that wasn’t that his plan hadn’t outsmarted them, but that Angel was beginning to catch up.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Despite the bizarre looks his team gave after the hours he spent frozen on a bench in the courtyard in the monastery, the practice proved useful, allowing Sergio to remain completely immobile while perched in a tree for an indeterminate amount of time. He tensed as the first search team approached the tree several metres below, but the plan held up just as expected: the spray masking his scent and the leaves and branches that covered his head concealed him from the dogs sniffing around the base of the tree, and the search team passed without detecting so much as a hint of his presence.</p><p>As minutes passed, so did several more packs of dogs guided by officers. After the first few groups, Sergio grew more confident about his defense and relaxed, which made it easier to sit motionless for a long stretch of time. Only as Raquel passed did his concentration waver — his head shot up against his will as soon as her signature pencil bun entered his line of vision, immediately commanding his attention. He silently cursed the mild disruption in the leaves his reflex caused, hoping it was imperceptible from the ground below. The moment he met her familiar honey brown irises, detecting a hint of wonder in their depths in the brief second she looked his way, he knew it wasn’t. As she disappeared into the distance, Sergio didn’t know if his heart raced from adrenaline or from a similar thrill of seeing her, as far away as he was.</p><p>After a while, new figures emerging from the edge of the trees had begun to slow. When no new officers or dogs appeared on the horizon, Sergio found his radio to reach Palermo. When his captain answered, he initiated the only distraction tactic powerful enough to free him from his predicament. “Palermo… it’s time for Plan Alcatraz.”</p><p>“Alcatraz?” Palermo hissed into the radio. “Sergio, what’s going on out there?”</p><p>He cleared his throat. “My situation is… not ideal.” An understatement, really. Alcatraz was a plan for dire circumstances, but the search teams circling below eliminated most of his usual strategies. It was time to blow up the chessboard to throw them off — and the only thing that might disrupt the pieces more than his own escape was the entire gang’s escape. While Tamayo and Sierra pursued a non-existent lead, Sergio would have time to reassemble the pieces on his side, starting by joining Marseille.</p><p>First, Marseille set the stage for the symphony inside the bank, playing the flute to lure the police tent off his scent. After his phone connected to the one travelling down the highway far away from his current location, Sergio restricted his exchange with Tamayo to a brief goodbye and a tongue-in-cheek apology for any stress their escape caused him — just cryptic enough to inspire panic when he and his gang escaped simultaneously, dividing the Colonel’s attention in a way he doubted the man’s heart could handle.</p><p>Within minutes, officers flocked back to the clearing where his ambulance had eventually stopped, pursuing the false lead. By now, Marseille would have laid the next trap: an abandoned car wreck littered with evidence of his DNA. Sergio maintained perfect stillness in his hiding spot, but his eyes immediately found Raquel as she passed again nonetheless. He didn’t have to tilt his head this time to see her, and instead focused on storing every detail in his memory; the way her hair shone under the sliver of sun that filtered in, the confidence in her steps matching Angel’s, and was that a bit of confusion in her gaze?</p><p>In an ideal situation, there would have been a way to inform her of his plans. As it was, he hoped she saw through the traps — he trusted her not to betray him, and after all, she <em> had </em> figured him out last time.</p><p>Almost an hour after the last officers disappeared out of sight, the crunching of branches below signalled either his salvation or his execution — fortunately, Marseille’s tentative voice drifting up from the ground confirmed the former. “Professor?”</p><p>In moments, Sergio tore off the fake leaves and joined him below. They hastened to the vehicle Marseille had commandeered, as each second spent within potential view of any drones still surveying the area put all of the plans in motion at risk of failure. The pair walked in a comfortable, familiar silence that neither cared to break until they arrived at the car.</p><p>As Marseille began to navigate the stolen vehicle onto a new set of back roads in the direction of Madrid, Sergio returned his attention to the heist, starting with a new key part of the plan Marseille had handled in his absence. “Any news on Vicuña?”</p><p>First the emails drew suspicion, then his inexplicable presence near Huelva — hours from his base in Madrid — added another layer of uncertainty. Sergio hadn’t been able to check on the tabs he’d started keeping on the man since he’d left the caravan the previous day, when Alberto unknowingly forced him to switch vehicles. Yet beyond what Raquel had told him, he knew nothing.</p><p>“Prieto sent him to Huelva yesterday to arrange something. Coordinates led to an abandoned port.”</p><p>Sergio frowned. “How do we know this?”</p><p>“Text messages between Vicuña and Prieto. Last time I checked in, Pakistan was researching the name of Prieto’s contact in Huelva.”</p><p>“And there was no context?” Marseille shook his head, and Sergio let out an irritated breath, fingers tapping restlessly against his leg. “I’ll see if they recorded any calls between the two. There has to be something we can get.” He owed it to Raquel to keep trying, for dragging her into his mess and condemning her before she had even agreed to join his team — she still hadn’t, not officially.</p><p>Still, whether or not she was on his side, he was on hers. And even if Prieto and Alberto led him to another dead end, he would find another way to uncover their plans. </p><p>Raquel didn’t need someone to dive in and rescue her; she was capable of fighting her own battles. But she <em> didn’t </em> have to fight against the current alone, and each new bit of information revealed about the schemes against her added more buoyancy to the lifesaver he’d throw her way. Sergio was closer than ever to the final piece of information that would fortify the raft enough to be able to save her life — but the storm of the police inside the tent and on his trail raged outside his boat, threatening to catapult him into the water at her side. </p><p>For now, until he reached Madrid, all there was to do was to hold on.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Somehow, the drive from the ambulance to an indefinite destination along the highway felt longer than the hours it took to get from Madrid to Huelva. It felt like too much to hope that the Professor would continue to evade the police, who were gaining on him, now only <em> one </em> step behind. Last time, he had accounted for almost every possible outcome — but their hunt for him seemed to evolve so rapidly that she questioned his ability to respond to so many changing variables. Even though he <em> had </em> evidently planned a way to escape from the forest, he couldn’t keep running forever.</p><p>The thought echoed in Raquel’s mind, something of a promise, a <em> warning </em> as her eyes studied the expanse of fields surrounding Angel’s car as it sped along the highway. A permanent feeling of unease low in her stomach grounded her in the present, while attentive ears remained on alert for any attempt by Tamayo to contact Angel with an update.</p><p>When half an hour that felt like several hours had passed, a mass of black metal appeared on the horizon, materializing into the smashed remains of a car — a gruesome wreck. It didn’t take a thorough inspection of the site to tell Raquel that it was a grim sign, and her stomach twisted into a tight knot. In the off chance it <em> wasn’t </em> the Professor’s car that had wrecked, Raquel felt a moral obligation to examine the jarring sign of crushed metal and shattered glass, even as she would rather ignore it and let him get away. “What’s that up ahead?” She questioned around a dry throat to alert her partner to the sight.</p><p><em> “Joder,” </em> Angel swore as he took in the wreck, and he abruptly steered the car to the side of the road near the scene of the accident. As Raquel all but launched herself from the car, Angel radioed other members of their team, while the few vehicles that followed them came to a stop on the side of the otherwise deserted road. A few officers, including Suarez, joined her near the wreckage.</p><p>Fragments of glass from the broken windows crunched beneath her boots as she circled the demolished car, crouching to inspect the debris on the ground. Massive dents in the metal suggested serious damage that didn’t come from a simple wreck — if she had to guess, it had rolled many times before stopping several metres from the side of the road. And judging by the splatters of blood across the glass and indented metal, the force of the impact battered the driver in a potentially lethal way.</p><p>Raquel stopped herself before trying to assess the amount of blood the driver must have lost, as she doubted she truly wanted the answer to that question.</p><p>Exhaling slowly, she rose to her feet and stepped around the rear of the car. The trunk had snapped open in the crash, revealing gear fit for a tree climber. With the loose tree branches stashed inside, it was all the confirmation she needed to conclude the Professor had been its driver — and had escaped again, possibly barely clinging to life.</p><p>Her hand itched toward the emergency phone stashed in her purse in Angel’s car, but Raquel clenched her fist and held it at her side. The fields and wreckage around her had grown hazy as her mind reeled over the thought of the Professor dying somewhere out of reach — but she had to fight the urge in her head to confirm he was alright, that this was another trap. </p><p>One stunning thought echoed over the others, louder than the rest: she couldn’t lose Sergio before she got him back.</p><p>The realization caught her off guard, knocking the breath from her lungs. It was far too soon to begin unpacking her feelings, but the aftermath of the wreck didn’t care to wait. She staggered back as if disrupted by an invisible force, lifting a hand to her chest.</p><p>A voice over her shoulder shoved her back into the present, where she couldn’t afford to let emotions cloud her judgment if she were to balance the act of peace-seeking inspector with the spy subtly working to throw the police off the Professor’s tail. Now that it was a question of survival, unpacking her unexpected concern <em> did </em> have to wait. “No sign of a driver?” Raquel turned to see Suarez approach the car.</p><p>She shook her head. “No, but it had to have been him. Look.” Pulling one of the leafy tree branches from the trunk, she held it to Suarez. The thought that he couldn’t have gotten far still haunted her, but she kept that one to herself, confining her response to a conclusion he would have likely reached himself soon without her help.</p><p>Suarez inspected the branch for a moment, frowning, then glanced at the other gear in the trunk. “Is that tree-climbing equipment?”</p><p>Raquel nodded. “I think so. He had to have been there the whole time.”</p><p><em> “Hijo de puta. </em> We’re so close.” Suarez clenched his fist as his frown deepened into a scowl. He strode off to meet the new few vehicles of officers to arrive at the new centre of investigation unfolding before them.</p><p>She lingered at the car for a few more moments, swallowing thickly as her mind attempted to construct an explanation as to how he might still be alive and alright somewhere — at this point, it was a genuine professional concern. With each additional detail her hesitant gaze took in, however, it became more difficult to convince herself he was alright. Knowing the resources he had, at least she couldn’t discount that he was alive.</p><p>Unable to examine the scene any longer, Raquel tore her eyes from the wreck to return to Angel’s side. However, a different figure already occupied that space; as she approached the side of the field where Angel stood, she saw her ex-husband at his side, having arrived to conduct a forensic investigation of the wreck. She acknowledged him with a steely gaze and a curt nod.</p><p>“What, you can’t even greet me, Inspectora Murillo? I thought we knew how to get along well now.” Something in his usual self-important tone struck a nerve, an all too familiar mirror of their past. Somewhere between the ruling that officially granted her custody of Paula and the call to Angel’s phone earlier that morning, Alberto regained some of the insolence he’d so often cast her way before. The behavior itself came as nothing of a surprise — but that it came <em> now </em> set off warning alarms in her mind.</p><p>“I wasn’t aware getting along required a polite greeting, but buenos días, Inspector Vicuña,” Raquel spoke in an even tone, lips flattening into a thin line as she crossed her arms to her chest. He wouldn’t break her as easily as he used to, but as she felt her heartbeat begin to pick up again, she was undeniably shaken by the weight of his sudden presence on one shoulder and the Professor’s potential death on the other. His antagonism no longer intimidated her — she couldn’t forget that.</p><p>When a closer look at Angel revealed he was busy on the phone, Raquel drew in a deep breath to recenter herself and abandoned her intent to check in with their plans. She observed the forensic investigation of the car from afar as Alberto joined his team. A few officers catalogued the physical evidence left in the debris, collecting shards of glass stained with blood and fingerprints from the climbing gear. There was little reason to doubt this was the Professor’s car, but each potential clue counted if it led to someone who may be aiding him on the outside.</p><p>The scene reminded her of the forensic investigation at the house in Toledo during the last heist as officers latched onto any bit of evidence that might help the police get one step ahead. Though now, the Professor wasn’t a comforting presence by her side as Salva near Alberto as he came to inspect all the false trails. Now, she looked at the last place he was known to have been alive. If only this was another series of evidence planted to distract the police.</p><p>Raquel frowned, brow knitting. What if it <em> was </em> another false trail? What if she looked at exactly what he wanted her to look at, another ruse to buy time?</p><p>She exhaled slowly at the realization, hesitant to release some of the tension built up over worrying about his fate. It certainly seemed plausible that the Professor had engineered the wreck; and as she observed the open field again, she saw only a short brick barrier at the side of the road, no other cars or obstacles in sight to have caused a crash. She glanced at the smashed remains of the car and at the empty road and saw Salva creeping along in her car toward the Toledo house, not the Professor accelerating at unsustainable speeds. There was no way he was careless enough to crash into the only physical obstacle on such an open road — unless he <em> intended </em> to.</p><p>Alberto would inevitably discover that the blood was his, that he’d lost a significant amount no less. But if the wreck was intentional, the Professor had a plan that accounted for any potential blood loss. It was much easier to accept multi-layered plans than the chance he escaped barely clinging to life — but it was more believable, too. Once again, the Professor leaped ahead of the police; only this time, Raquel followed a step behind.</p><p>So she hoped.</p><p>After finally noticing Raquel had returned, Angel clicked off the phone call and shoved the device in his pocket. “That was Tamayo. He wants us back in Madrid,” he explained, prompting a frown as he turned away to address a few of the senior officers who gathered nearby. “Alright, I want units heading to all the hospitals in the area, any neighboring town that might have a doctor willing to help him! Suarez, you’re in charge. Vicuña can lead the forensic investigation.”</p><p>“Why does he want us in Madrid now?” Raquel questioned when Angel finished addressing Suarez and the others who would continue the investigation. Her eyes narrowed on the wreck as she took it in one last time, capturing its image in her memory as if it would help her discover definitive proof the wreck had been staged.</p><p>“It was just an order. I think Alicia wants to regroup and plot our next strategies.” Angel shrugged, sliding into his car. </p><p>Raquel followed, protesting, “But I thought the whole point of me coming along was because I found the Professor last time and could again. I don’t see why they want me back before I’ve done that.”</p><p>“No lo sé.”</p><p>It almost felt like Alicia had wanted her out of the way — whether that meant the day before in the tent or then at the scene of the wreck. If Alicia never intended Raquel to lead the hunt for the Professor and prove her instincts, why had she sent her to the south with Angel? But if Alicia <em> had </em> actually intended her to help find the Professor, why bring her back to Madrid before she did? The questions led her into a feedback loop where the same questions led to each other, providing no answers and bringing a dull ache to her forehead.</p><p>Head spinning from the back and forth conclusions, she let her eyes flutter shut and leaned her head against the window. The sharp pull of anxiety that had never fully faded tightened her grip on consciousness, but lack of sleep eventually caught up to her, and she knew better than to think she could reach any definite conclusions in such a state.</p><p>Raquel drifted off to a much-needed nap, and she didn’t stir until a particularly large bump in the road jolted her awake hours later. “Sorry,” Angel mumbled an apology in a voice low enough that she might still drift back to sleep. Her eyes blinked open slowly, landing on a road sign for a village about an hour outside Madrid. </p><p>She sat up straighter and brushed a hand through the tangles in her hair; the pencil must have fallen from her bun in her sleep. As Raquel bent down to locate the pencil in the crack between the seat and the door or somewhere on the floor, the slow rock song playing over the radio came to a sudden stop. She wore a small, satisfied smile as her fingers wrapped around the pencil, which had fallen near her foot.</p><p><em> “We interrupt this program to bring you news of the biggest leak of state secrets in this country’s history.” </em> Raquel snapped up, grip tightening around the pencil. <em> “This program has been given access to more than 100 classified documents.” </em></p><p>The secrets.</p><p>“What the hell happened when I was out?” She questioned, her bewildered gaze searching Angel’s for a reaction, but he seemed only mildly puzzled.</p><p>“Nothing?” He briefly glanced in her direction, but his gaze returned to the road within a second. “I don’t— I mean, Suarez hasn’t called with an update. I don’t think…” Shaking his head and pausing as if to consider his words carefully, Angel sighed. </p><p>
  <em> “Spain sold cluster bombs to Saddam Hussein six months before the invasion of Iraq. It’s one of the so-called CNI papers, a mass declassification of state secrets that were kept in the Bank of Spain.” </em>
</p><p>The secret itself didn’t faze her — but her mind whirled under the potential implications of the secrets revealed <em> now. </em> The Professor wouldn’t unleash the secrets all of a sudden unprovoked, but she didn’t know of any scheme they had planned against him. </p><p>Unless there was no scheme — <em> unless </em> they had caught up to him in the three hours she slept, killed him, and prompted his team to release the secrets to the press.</p><p>“Call Tamayo!” Raquel demanded, unable to process anything beyond the conclusions her mind jumped to as a heavy weight lodged into her chest. Her heartbeat accelerated, and breathing became more difficult around the tightness in her chest. She attempted to steady herself, closing her eyes as her fingers made quick work to twist the pencil into her hair again. At least now she could <em> think. </em></p><p>“Vale, vale…” Angel leaned forward to his phone mounted on the dashboard and pressed the button to redial his most recent call, then the one to broadcast the call over the radio. The dial tone drowned out the exposure of secret meetings in Brussels between Spanish officials and those of another country whose name the call cut off.</p><p>“What is it, Rubio?”</p><p>“Calling to check in. We’re about an hour from Madrid… the radio was talking about a secrets leak? Any updates from the tent?”</p><p>“Don’t worry about what’s going on in the tent, focus on getting back to Madrid!” Tamayo roared into the phone. The usual fury in his tone revealed little about the situation inside the tent. It was impossible to tell whether it was the panic of a man whose worst crimes were revealed to the public or simply indignation at Angel interrupting the tent’s response.</p><p><em> “ANTONANZAS! Antoñanzas, go meet </em> — <em> ” </em></p><p>“Did anything happen with—” Angel interrupted Alicia’s voice in the background, but in turn Tamayo interrupted Angel by ending the call, as the line went dead a moment later. He slumped back in his seat in disbelief.</p><p>“He’s not telling us something,” was the immediate conclusion Raquel reached, sharing Angel’s disbelief with slightly widened eyes.</p><p>“I don’t know…” Angel mumbled, unable to counter her.</p><p>“The Professor wouldn’t leak the secrets unprovoked,” Raquel argued. “I don’t know if they caught him, or if they tried another damn attack while I wasn’t there to talk them out of it, but something happened. And Tamayo wants to cover it up.”</p><p>Angel shrugged and shook his head, leaving his response at that. They fell into an uncomfortable silence that was broken only by the sound of Raquel’s foot tapping restlessly against the ground. He looked her way, perhaps noticing her agitation, and let out a sigh. “We’d know if they killed him. Tamayo wouldn’t hide that.”</p><p>She’d like to hope that was true — but the operations inside the tent since she left were shrouded in so much mystery that it also felt like too much to hope. This time it was her turn to respond with a dejected sigh, “No lo sé.”</p><p>“We’ll be there in less than an hour. I’m sure they’ll catch us up right away.”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>As much faith as she wanted to have in Angel’s belief the Professor was out there still alive somewhere, her certainty he wouldn’t release the secrets unprovoked was stronger than her confidence Tamayo would tell them if they killed the Professor.</p><p>Raquel could easily play the role of pacifist inspector while working behind the scenes for the Professor, but it was far less simple for her to operate on a professional level for the Professor while such personal feelings bled through, as she’d expected they would. Left alone to her thoughts, her three roles battled for dominance in her reaction to his potential death: inspector, agent, lover.</p><p>Inspectora Murillo was mostly irked by the seemingly intentional lack of information on Tamayo’s end. Agent Lisboa feared the implications of his death for the result of the heist and hoped the Professor’s meticulous planning saved him from the hunt Suarez would have launched since she left the scene of the wreck.</p><p>And as Raquel, his once-lover, she struggled to breathe under the soul-shattering fear of the man she loved being gone forever — even if their relationship was a relic of the past.</p><p>It brought her mind back to a jarring thought from earlier: <em> she couldn’t lose Sergio before she got him back. </em></p><p>It wasn’t so much the intense ache in her heart that surprised her, but rather her apparent desire to <em> get him back, </em> and all that implied. There wasn’t anything to get back, not really; in the years and miles that separated them, Sergio was never <em> hers, </em> and aligning with the Professor didn’t mean picking up right where they left off <em> . </em> But she’d long given up on pretending she didn’t care about him, and his death meant she’d never get the closure she needed, the salves to heal all the wounds that she’d only ever covered up in his absence.</p><p>Only <em> getting him back </em> signified something far beyond closure. Something that could never be, unless she gave up the life she’d rebuilt.</p><p>The fleeting thought that she might want that terrified her almost as much as the chance he was gone forever.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. viii. in all chaos, there is calculation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>As Raquel and Sergio arrive in different parts of Madrid, Alicia executes a plan.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello again, after one month, I'm finally with another chapter! Between work getting busy and US election stress over the past month, I have just not been in a headspace to write. However, the next chapter’s draft is halfway written, so I should be back soon (within a week or two?) 🙏 sorry if I kept you all waiting too long this time, but I hope it’s worth the wait!</p><p>A couple of important prefaces: this chapter is a bit more graphic in terms of violence, but it’s nothing worse than the show. And for clarity, there is a lot of overlap between the perspectives and conversations that are referenced/going on; but Raquel and Sergio arrive in Madrid about the same time, and it’s nearly all simultaneous.</p><p>Lastly, the song for this chapter is <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/60jI0JgMLLj1VggHJVhtRs?si=xzLBfxkTS5ScRt4CY88X3A">Glory and Gore by Lorde</a>. </p><p>Thanks for sticking with me this far! I hope you all enjoy, and I promise to try to be back soon. 💕</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Madrid, around 16:00</b>
</p><p>The final hour to Madrid was no less forgiving on Raquel’s nerves than had been the several moments when fear of the Professor’s death had gripped her. Fortunately, although her heart continued to race, her mind went numb; instead of thinking about just how screwed she might be, the static of a blank television screen crackled over images of the wreck she no longer wanted to imagine.</p><p>As Angel’s car approached the CNI operation, the seatbelt suffocated her the longer it contained her inside. The moment the car rolled to a stop, Raquel launched herself from the vehicle. She drank in the crisp spring air as she marched to the tent, although the fresh air did nothing to settle her unrelenting nerves.</p><p>Several questions and accusations, mostly directed at Alicia, burned on her tongue as her gaze first swept the tent. She thought better of that approach with seconds to spare, and instead she hovered somewhere near the entrance, surveying the scene. Alicia stood near the back of the tent in front of a table where a boy with unruly black hair, no older than Paula, sat calmly.</p><p>Her eyes turned elsewhere, and as she took in the rest of the tent, she noticed that the relaxed atmosphere enveloped the rest of the tent as well. It was somehow calmer in the tent than the clearing in the forest had been, and the frenzied operation at the wreck on the side of the road as well. For an operation that may have killed the most wanted man in Spain then had its crimes exposed to the world, something didn’t add up.</p><p>The faint hint of pink in Tamayo’s cheeks as opposed to a fiery red flush, his unimpressed gaze instead of eyes bulging from their sockets, and the absence of any medics checking his blood pressure further made her question what she had heard on the radio in Angel’s car. There was no way Tamayo would maintain that much composure — well, relatively speaking — if the Professor had exposed the government’s darkest secrets, as the radio seemed to have broadcasted for all of Spain to hear.</p><p>And there it went again, that dangerous flutter of hope in her chest building her confidence even as she knew her fate oscillated from safety to extreme danger with each moment.</p><p>Tamayo wouldn’t be so calm if the Professor dragged down the Spanish government with him. Which meant at least that the information leaked to the press was fabricated intelligence, and <em> maybe </em> that the Professor wasn’t dead as she’d assumed.</p><p>Raquel let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.</p><p>From the other side of the tent, Raquel studied Tamayo as if to find confirmation in subtle details. His arms were folded tightly to his chest as he observed the monitors studying the bank interior. Then, as a less senior officer handed him a cell phone and a plastic bag full of tiny red capsules, Tamayo stuffed them inside a blue teddy bear that he passed along to Alicia. The sight of the bear seemed to agitate the boy in a way that made her stomach churn for a reason she couldn’t place.</p><p>As Tamayo began to cross the tent, Raquel started off in his direction to meet him halfway. “What the hell is going on? Is no one paying attention to the news today?” She accosted him, easily slipping back into the facade of a concerned inspector who cared whether the police and the CNI were exposed.</p><p>“What?” Tamayo halted in place, blinking at her. “What are you talking about, Murillo?”</p><p>She froze. Had her assessment been wrong — <em> were </em> the secrets real, and the police simply oblivious? “The secrets? You know, the ones hidden in the bank that are now international news?” Even the American news outlets had begun to report the leak, as officials across the world were implicated in the leaked documents. She’d scrolled aimlessly through various countries’ coverage of the leak during the rest of the ride to Madrid for lack of desire or ability to focus on anything else but a distraction from her fear and other feelings she preferred not to explore.</p><p>“What? Those aren’t real. Sierra made them up. Don’t waste my time.” He pushed past her to greet Angel and Prieto, who had also just arrived, near the front of the tent. Raquel remained in place, stunned.</p><p>If Sierra leaked fake secrets, the Professor probably wasn’t dead, and that was cause for relief. But since she arrived, the tent had begun to stir with the tension of their own plans in motion, not a bomb dropped on them in retaliation — did the Professor know of the leak? And why had Sierra intentionally provided the press with information that would shine a bad light on Spanish institutions, even if only temporarily?</p><p>The fake secrets were clearly a weapon of their own, an attempt to neutralize the Professor’s greatest advantage against them. To do so <em> now, </em> when they were close on his tail, didn’t bode well.</p><p>As Alicia carried the blue teddy bear out of the tent, Tamayo and Prieto cleared from the entrance. With Angel at some distance from them, Raquel stepped in to get answers out of the only person she could somewhat trust.</p><p>“You were right about the Professor, and the secrets were fake,” she spoke in a low voice, leaning closer to keep the conversation away from prying ears. “But I don’t get why we leaked them now.”</p><p>Pulling back to look at her warily, Angel shook his head. “No lo sé. Sierra has the plan under control, according to Tamayo,” he shrugged. The slight unease in his tone and the way he refused to meet her gaze unearthed more questions than he had answered. She questioned her original judgment that she might be able to trust him; she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was lying to her, too. </p><p>Angel seemed to sense her suspicion in the way an eyebrow lifted, and he hesitated as if weighing his options. She kept quiet instead of demanding answers this time, hoping her silent challenge spurred him to continue. He glanced around the tent before edging closer until his cheek grazed hers, “She’s making one of the robbers a clear target. If they’re busy playing doctor, they won’t make a bloodbath out of… another mission.” Their gazes met as her eyes widened, and she started to turn away. His hand shot out in front of her, blocking her movement with gentle force. He knew her too well. “Hey. This is going to minimize bloodshed in the end, fewer people will get hurt. And it’ll all be over soon.”</p><p>But one person dead was still one too many, robber or not. That philosophy hadn’t changed from the first heist.</p><p>Raquel gave a curt nod, expression going blank as she studied the boy still sitting alone at the table, looking somewhat lost. Seeming to sense she’d abandoned the idea of accosting Alicia, Angel leaned back and lowered his arm. “I’m going to go check in with Laura, then. Paula will be happy to be able to come home tonight.” He cast her a final cautious look as she turned away, but she managed to exit the tent at a casual stride despite the urge to run out of there.</p><p>Her gaze flickered toward the heavily guarded stretch in front of the bank where Alicia gently placed the bear, and she used the focus on the operation to her advantage, ducking to a corner within the perimeter behind the extent of surveillance, where the masses of protestors thinned out. From afar, she watched Alicia make her way back to the tent as the bank’s doors creaked open.</p><p>The excuse hadn’t been a total lie; Raquel <em> had </em> left the tent to make a call. More than ever, she hoped the Professor managed to evade the search teams and would pick up on the other end.</p><p>She dug the emergency phone from its hiding spot at the bottom of her bag, fighting the distress in her face and tension mounting in her body that threatened to betray her if anyone glanced her way too long. With the echo of the dial tone in the background, a ticking clock counted the seconds until the bomb exploded, unless she managed to defuse it. Outside the bank, an unmasked hostage surrounded by masked Dalis in red jumpsuits collected the bear from the pavement.</p><p>“Lisbon?”</p><p>“Geneva’s going to strike,” she spoke around the overwhelming breath of relief she let out at hearing the Professor’s voice. <em> He was alive. </em> “I-I don’t know what she’s doing, but it involves the bear your hostages just retrieved…” She remembered the way the boy in the tent seemed somewhat put off by the stuffed animal, which illuminated another piece of Alicia’s plan — she should have remembered the contents of Agata Jimenez’s file sooner. “And a boy, I think he’s Nairobi’s—”</p><p>His swear into the phone interrupted her words, and Raquel had no time to continue as he frantically contacted his team inside the bank. On her end, Alicia emerged from the tent again, leading the young boy down the path she’d just travelled.</p><p>“Geneva is outside with the boy now. She’s surrounded by the sniper teams, they’re going to target her!” Raquel hastily cut in over the Professor’s communication. <em> Away from the windows, </em>she thought she heard him shout over the sound of his fist meeting a table on his side.</p><p>Her stomach reeled at the thought of using a son to get to his mother. She ached realizing this would have been the first time Agata was able to see her son since she was sentenced to prison, as the courts would never return him after a drug-related offense, even if they were supposed to. It was nothing short of cruel to manipulate a mother’s love to strike at the heart of the operations, and her heart broke for Agata and the way Alicia played carelessly with the bond between Agata and her son.</p><p>The past weeks Alicia spent torturing a kid in the middle of nowhere should have made her expect such sly, cruel moves from the woman — yet Raquel let out a pained gasp as Alicia’s slight nod gave the snipers permission to fire into the bank.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Alicia Sierra was the biggest <em> hija de puta </em> Nairobi had ever known. And she had dealt with prison guards who spat in her face and social workers who raised barrier after barrier to her ever getting her son back.</p><p>Not to mention the misogynistic ass in charge of the operations inside the bank.</p><p>At first, she couldn’t make out the blurry object Alicia carried toward the bank — until suddenly the faded blue fabric of Axel’s favorite bear sharpened into sight, and it took all her strength not to rip off the curtains she pushed aside from the window.</p><p>She bolted down to the ground floor knowing full well it was a trap laid specifically for her. She didn’t care. Her anguish at the thought of her son battled against her anger that this was the route the police took to manipulate her and an even stronger rage that it was <em> working. </em> </p><p>By the time Nairobi reached the lobby, hostages were lined up and handed guns. Not wanting to risk a miscommunication, she insisted, “We have to get that bear.”</p><p>“We’re on that right now, dumbass.”</p><p>Palermo’s answer wasn’t good enough. She didn’t trust anyone else near Axel’s bear; too many people had already come between her and her son. “I’ll do it.”</p><p>“Nairobi! Stop, Nairobi!” Helsinki’s frantic words stalled her as his arms found hers. </p><p>“What?”</p><p>“We have a protocol.” She gave a dry laugh. </p><p>“What’s gotten into you?” Palermo interrogated.</p><p>“Nothing.” </p><p>The next few minutes as the group of hostages filed out of the bank to retrieve the bear hardly registered. The doors sliding shut behind the retrieval team were a blur under echoes of <em>what the fuck is she doing is she hurting him I’ll ruin her</em> <em>that hija de puta</em> circling through her mind.</p><p>When the x-ray machine identified a phone inside the bear, nothing could come between Nairobi and the bomb Sierra left for her. Her breath hitched when they found something else, and she hovered behind Helsinki as he opened the bear to examine its contents.</p><p>Her stomach lurched at the sight of a bag containing small red pills, and the urge to tell off that bitch for using her son against her grew.</p><p>The phone rang as soon as Helsinki removed it from the bear, and Nairobi’s hand shot forward. “Hija de la gran puta! What the hell do you want?”</p><p>“To make you an offer.”</p><p>Her son for her friends. The only problem was that they didn’t plan on fulfilling that promise.</p><p>“Go to hell.”</p><p>As her mind caught up with the events of the past few seconds, processing an unexpected assault of emotions, Nairobi struggled to breathe. The moment the call ended, she snatched the bear and turned away from the group. She needed air.</p><p>“Where do you think you’re going? Who’s going to—”</p><p>She’d had enough of Palermo’s shit, and she pointed her gun at him without hesitation. “Let me go.” Someone started following her as she raced up the stairs to the higher floors, but she didn’t look back.</p><p>Nairobi didn’t know how she ended up on the floor in one of the rooms, cradling the bear to her chest and holding onto it as if it were her lifeline. It wasn’t fair that Alicia Sierra could torture one of her friends and the state didn’t bat an eyelash about her keeping her kid, but Nairobi lost hers for doing the only thing she could do to keep him fed and safe. Sierra dangling her son and her mistakes in front of her like this reawakened the guilt she had buried over time, but it also provoked resentment that Sierra would never have to pay penance despite hurting Rio so much more than the drugs she sold ever had. </p><p>Nairobi learned of the world’s cruelty from a young age, but time passing made the truth no easier to bear.</p><p>When footsteps echoed in the corridor she braced herself to tell someone to fuck off, but the words died on her lips as Stockholm approached. “That’s your son’s bear, isn’t it?”</p><p>She started to nod, but her face scrunched up as she fought back tears. Only as she responded and heard it in her voice did she realize that she’d already been crying for a while. “It doesn’t smell like him anymore.” Her eyes glued to the bear, as if looking away for a moment would rip it away like they took Axel from her.</p><p>Stockholm crouched down next to her. “Nairobi. They did it to hurt you.”</p><p>“Yeah, I know.” And she’d fallen for it anyway. “And they really fucked with me because the only thing I want now is to smell my son.”</p><p>Nairobi was a millionaire and could have anything in the world but she’d never felt more hollow, because the euros she printed could never buy her son back, and Alicia Sierra had to know he was the only thing she wanted that could never be hers.</p><p>“I’m a bad mother.” She broke the silence after a moment, prompting Stockholm to glance up at her again.</p><p>“No. No, Nairobi. You did everything you could, and you paid for it. You paid a lot, and you’re still paying.”</p><p>Stockholm sounded as genuine as ever, but reassuring words were easy to say by someone who didn’t understand the extent of the guilt that still haunted her every single day. “You have no fucking idea.” And then she recounted the story of what that bear represented, how even though this was the closest she’d gotten to Axel in years, it still twisted the knife deeper inside her knowing it was her fault she had lost him and it was her fault she would never see him again.</p><p>Nairobi soon felt Stockholm’s hand cover hers, but she didn’t have time to appreciate the gesture as the phone rang on the other end of the room. She climbed to her feet first, the other following behind her.</p><p>She didn’t know what the hell Alicia Sierra still had to say to her, but resentment and curiosity propelled her forward.</p><p>“I have your son.”</p><p>“What?” </p><p>Despite her better judgment, she stepped toward the window.</p><p>“Axel, he’s here with me.” </p><p>“That’s not true.” <em> It couldn’t be. </em></p><p>“Sí, sí.” Damn Sierra’s cheerful voice. Damn her for going after her biggest weakness. “He’s in front of me, one meter away. He’s as funny as ever.” She shook her head in disbelief. “He’s nine now. Axel?” A pause. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”</p><p>“A chef.”</p><p>A wave of nausea overcame her, and she took a staggered step back as she covered her mouth in awe with the bear while Sierra had Axel repeat his answer again.</p><p>This was all Nairobi had wanted for years: to hear her son again, to be with him, even if several layers of cement, a few meters, and a police tent still separated them.</p><p>She <em> knew </em> the deal Sierra would offer her was bullshit. But if it got her to hear his voice again, to see him, to smell him, even if only for a few moments—</p><p>“You’re lying. I’m gonna hang up.” No, she couldn’t fall for their trap. It had to be a voice modulator to lure her in and play her.</p><p>“Don’t hang up. I have something to offer you. But first of all, I’ll show you I don’t lie.”</p><p>“I don’t trust bitches like you.”</p><p>“Yeah, I don’t either. Vamos, Axel.” <em> What the hell were they doing? </em> “Here’s what we’ll do. I’m going out there… with him. And you’ll see that what I’m saying is true. And we’ll talk later. I have something important to tell you.”</p><p>As Nairobi stepped up to the window and lowered the phone, she resisted the urge to rip the curtain down just as she’d wanted to do earlier as Alicia first led the bear out of the police tent. Slowly, she brushed the curtain aside and let out a soft gasp as Alicia led Axel along the same path she had taken to deliver the bear.</p><p>He had grown so much. He looked so healthy, so strong, and her heart ached to see it knowing it was because they took him away from her. </p><p>Nairobi let out a choked, unbelieving sob as they came closer. He was there — <em> he was still there. </em> She wanted to smash through the windows and reach out and take him into her arms and never let them take him away again. “Mi hijo…” Her heart overflowed with the love she’d had to keep bottled up for so long.</p><p>So entranced by the impossible sight before her, Nairobi didn’t hear the extra pair of footsteps pounding down the hallway, Stockholm’s panicked warning, or even Palermo’s violent string of swears as he shoved her out of the way the same moment a bullet shot through the window, missing its target and striking a different one.</p><p>In Palermo’s haste to shove her away from the window, he had miscalculated his own position, and the bullet struck his chest instead. </p><p>Still somewhat dazed and floating in a different reality where her son was <em> so close, </em> Nairobi only missed being hit by the sniper’s second bullet because she doubled over with more sobs as it struck another hole through the window.</p><p>She finally descended back into the present when she realized the bear had fallen from her grip, now soaked with splatters of blood that had almost been her own.</p><p>Now, the bear was damning evidence of all of her crimes and all who were hurt as a consequence of her actions. She had become Nairobi to heal from the wounds caused by Agata’s past — but now she had made them again. Now Nairobi too, and all of her team, would pay the price for Agata’s decisions. More atonement without an end in sight.   </p><p>“Help! <em> Help!” </em>Stockholm’s panicked shouts over Palermo’s agonized groaning spurred Nairobi into action. She pushed down her red jumpsuit, shrugging off her shirt to press it firmly on the wound and try to stop the spurts of blood gushing out. The added pressure did little to help.</p><p>“Hold on,” Nairobi instructed as one hand rolled him onto his side, ignoring the pained groans and more loud swears that followed. Her other hand remained clamped on her shirt over the bullet hole, making her palm grow slick with his blood.</p><p>“What the fuck, Nairobi, you fucking <em> knew </em> it was a—”</p><p>Suddenly, she added a sharper pressure to the wound, shooting him a threatening look that shut him up mid-sentence. She <em> had </em> known it was a trap, but he couldn’t judge her for falling into it when he had no idea of the pain of having her son taken from her and used against her so casually. A brief glance at the window showed that Sierra had led Axel back into the tent, and her stomach twisted into knots. She ignored the feeling and returned her attention to a search for exit wounds.</p><p><em> Joder. </em> The bullet was still inside. They were going to have to operate.</p><p>“Palermo! Palermo, do you copy?”</p><p>The Professor’s voice sounded from the radio attached to Palermo’s chest. With a few pained grunts he removed it and managed to get out, “Professor, bit of a problem here.”</p><p>“You idiot!” Nairobi hissed and lowered him onto his back again, seizing the radio at the same moment Denver and Helsinki charged into the room, Tokyo trailing on their heels. Letting out a choked sob of his own, Helsi took her place helping Palermo, leaving her to communicate with the Professor. “Profe, Palermo’s been shot. Bullet’s still in him.” </p><p>Her frown deepened as she heard a repeated banging over the radio before the Professor’s dejected voice. “No, no, <em> no, </em>Lisbon, I’m so sorry…”</p><p><em> Lisbon? </em>Who the fuck was Lisbon?</p><p>“Wait, what?” He seemed to have been speaking to someone in the background, but none of their gang was named Lisbon, as far as she knew. </p><p>“Profe!” But there was no time to question a new city name now, because their captain was bleeding out, and as many times as Nairobi may have wanted to strangle Palermo for his twisted views of the world, she never wanted him to die. Especially not when it had been emphasized on several occasions that the entire plan hinged on him getting <em> all </em> of the gold out. “Profe, are you with us?”</p><p>At first, she only received a disconcertingly uncertain response from a man who planned everything to the most minute detail, more nervous than she’d ever heard him. But then his order came, and Nairobi realized to her horror the potential graveness of their current situation. Everything about the past twenty minutes screamed that they were absolutely screwed, but the Professor sealed their current fate with a single command. </p><p>They needed more time to save Palermo, and they needed it badly. If the next pieces of the plan they had memorized fell into place, they’d buy some time — but Nairobi didn’t want to think about whether or not additional hours gained while the police recoiled from their next move would be enough.</p><p>So she didn’t think. She acted.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>During the hours it took the motorcycles he rode with Marseille to reach Madrid before the police realized his escape, Sergio couldn’t shake the feeling that the heist’s luck was on borrowed time. His control over various elements of the plan outside of the bank was tenuous at best. Alberto and Prieto’s dubious plans in the south; Raquel’s delicate position as an agent on his side; and, finally, somehow relegated to a lower level of importance beyond his other concerns, his own uncertain safety — all of it balanced on unstable foundations. On top of his constant game of cat and mouse with the police and a precarious situation inside the bank, it would only take a gentle push for everything to come toppling down.</p><p>He swallowed the constant feeling of dread that had gripped him the entire four-hour journey once they arrived at the storm cellar to be used as the command center for the rest of the heist. Instead, Sergio leaned into his one certain solace: his confidence in the plan. Refinements made to his brother’s plan over the past two years sealed the remaining holes into a masterpiece he hoped would’ve made Andres proud. Like automation, the final parts of the plan would unfold, a fine-tuned machine with no gaps between the gears. No room for errors leading to the deaths of the last heist.</p><p>“I’m making ravioli. You need the energy.” Marseille’s words barely registered, as Sergio’s focus was already elsewhere, but he managed an absent nod in response.</p><p>As he flipped a series of switches and pulled off tarps covering equipment and walls until the afternoon light filtered in from windows near the ceiling, the command center came to life. Much more spacious than the caravan, and certainly the ambulance — there was even enough room for a few tables and a punching bag, in addition to the kitchen where Marseille had opened a can of ravioli into a pot on the stove — the storm cellar allowed the energy of his racing thoughts to expand into any distraction. In a way, it almost resembled his hangar near the Mint.</p><p>After a few minutes, Sergio had changed out of his camouflage gear and into his usual pressed suit. He adjusted his tie and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, settling into a chair in front of the main screens. Sliding on a communication headset, he leaned forward, mindlessly fiddling with the buttons on a radio on an end table near his desk in search of a classical music station. He skipped past a particular station broadcasting a talk program instead of music, but a passing intrigue in the radio announcer’s voice saying <em> Bank of Spain </em> made him flip back out of sheer curiosity. Reporters’ usual debates over the heist or the swells of protestors surrounding the bank often helped gauge public opinion of their cause.</p><p>
  <em> “Given the contents of the so-called CNI papers, many of which were declassified to us earlier today, you have to wonder if what the Professor said in his video is true. If Spain sells cluster bombs to Iraq, if past presidents’ parties arrange meetings with high-ranking Russian officials under pretenses of vacation in the Alps just before an election, if large parts of the defense budget go to military bases in the middle of the Moroccan desert… well, you start to wonder why exactly they hid the arrest of Anibal Cortes. Torture, as the Professor suggested, doesn’t seem all that far-fetched.” </em>
</p><p>If Sergio were to feel any relief or satisfaction at the media’s implicit support, it all washed away as he suddenly understood its context. Spain knew better than to write questionable military bases into their defense budget, not to mention the low likelihood such meetings would ever be documented in the files kept inside the bank, if anywhere at all. Those secrets were blatantly false, and the firewalls surrounding the real ones were too high to penetrate with the CNI’s budget.</p><p>His eyes shot toward the screens displaying the exterior of the bank, gradually widening as panic sank its claws into him again. No, the CNI didn’t have the resources to hack into his databases — but it did have the ability to fabricate countless secrets that would inevitably be disproven, as well as more than enough incentive to undermine him. Under the media commotion, anything he released would disappear under the noise. They had neutralized his most powerful weapon.</p><p>Without the constant fear of exposure looming overhead, the police were free to go after them in any way they wanted — whatever it took to end the mission.</p><p>They were going to attack.</p><p>In the same moment he reached for the radio to warn Palermo, he could swear he heard the emergency phone used to contact Raquel — which he’d hastily shoved in his pockets before abandoning the ambulance, now in his discarded clothes somewhere — faintly ringing. Sergio hesitated for a split second. </p><p>First pressing the button to reach out to Palermo, he then launched toward his forgotten clothes. Approaching with a bowl of ravioli Sergio already knew he would ignore, Marseille handed off the emergency phone, which he must have grabbed on his path to the control panel. Sergio nodded his thanks. </p><p>In one moment, Raquel’s panicked voice confirmed his suspicions and warned of the attack he expected; in the next, Palermo confirmed Alicia’s attempt to weaken them from the inside. “Don’t let anyone near that bear!” He hissed into the radio, releasing a helpless breath — almost a whimper — as his hands covered his face.</p><p>Sergio steeled himself after a moment, eyes cutting toward the screens, which displayed Alicia leading Nairobi’s son along a stretch in front of the bank. Like an ominous narration of the scene unfolding before him, Raquel warned of the next strike Alicia planned. Deep down, he supposed he already knew that the bear was more than just an attempt to destabilize one of his team members.</p><p>“Get Nairobi away from the windows! Now!”</p><p>It was difficult to hear his command over the sound of his heart pounding in his chest. Unable to tear his eyes away, he watched Alicia lead the boy back to the tent, then as she nodded almost imperceptibly once, twice—</p><p>Sergio forced himself from the chair, fingers tangling in his own hair, struggling to breathe. He noticed the splintered fragments of glass around two bullet holes in one of the windows and nearly doubled over as the air rushed from his lungs. Unlike the first day of the heist, when the rhythm of the waves crashing against the shore numbed him out of a panic attack, all Sergio had today were his thoughts and a command center that felt more stifling and less spacious than he’d remarked only minutes ago. </p><p>On the screens, Alicia had disappeared out of the range of cameras, presumably into the tent to continue her plans. This was only a preliminary strike, he was sure of it without needing Raquel’s confirmation of the police’s strategy, but he had to press on to uncover and avert the next attack. “Lisbon? What else is Geneva planning?” He imagined she was in the dark to many of Alicia’s schemes, but even the smallest morsel of intel helped.</p><p>“I- no lo sé…” Raquel choked out on the other end, and concern flashed across his expression. “You have to be prepared to counter anything. Porto was talking as if it would all be over today, <em> joder…” </em></p><p>They weren’t only attempting to weaken his team. They were attempting to shut them down altogether, the battle he had anticipated. Men against men, guns against guns, grenades against grenades. Just like in any other war.</p><p>Adjusting his tie and flicking his glasses up his nose to center himself, Sergio drew in a deep breath and sat once more. Any spare moment of peace was short-lived with the news Nairobi revealed in the next few moments, as Palermo’s fate unraveled any semblance of control he liked to think he had regained over the plan since returning to a stable base in the storm cellar.</p><p>With the force of his fist meeting the table again, the skin on his knuckles flamed red and was starting to rub raw — a rusted metal table was a worse channel for his anxiety than the punching bag that hung from the ceiling a few meters too far to be useful to him now. He let out another string of swears, then he croaked, “No no <em> no… </em> Lisbon, I’m so sorry…”</p><p>He wasn’t sure what he expected of a response, but a sudden stillness met him on the other end of the line. When he received no response after a few moments and repeated her name, a chill shuddered through him. The part of his mind that wanted to assume the worst was silenced only with Nairobi’s frantic voice shocking him into the present, reminding him of the more urgent priority at hand. “Profe! Profe, are you with us?”</p><p>“Nairobi, they’re going to go in—”</p><p>
  <em> “Joder.” </em>
</p><p>“—and I don’t- I don’t know… with Palermo down, we’re…” He paused to swallow a lump in his throat. “They took out our greatest weapon, they took out our leader. We have to stop them.” The secrets were out, their captain was out, and they were facing a war; in consequence, Sergio’s only command was simple, as much as he hated resorting to such an extreme response. “Nairobi, we have to go to DEFCON 2.”</p><p>His own safety — and that of everyone close to him — hung in the balance as their key to escape held onto life. If Palermo died, all of their hopes at winning vanished, condemning them to the same fate as Rio. The most drastic measures were necessary to buy them time in a statement powerful enough to squash counterattacks at least long enough to save Palermo.</p><p>“Mierda… okay, copy that, Profe. Tokyo, Denver! DEFCON 2! Vamos!”</p><p>He glanced at the screens again, but only briefly. At the sight of the armored cars rolling out and steadily approaching the bank’s iron doors, his stomach lurched.</p><p>Sergio turned to deal with the other current loose thread, unable to face the threat until he was certain his team could respond. “Marseille—” He called out, only realizing after a second that he’d been hovering over his shoulder the whole time, watching the screens with his usual passiveness. “Monitor the microphone on Lisbon’s phone. Figure out why she disappeared.” Marseille nodded and took over the headset and set of screens to his right.</p><p>By the time his eyes returned to the screens, the doors to the bank had opened. On one of the monitors, he could see the missiles Nairobi, Tokyo, and Denver lined up and aimed at the armored cars. </p><p>None of the blueprints he’d studied for years could have prepared him for the sight of the police vehicles engulfed in an explosion of flames, shattering one of his most fundamental principles: <em> no one gets hurt. </em></p><p>Now, as men fled from the blaze, Sergio was forced to confront the second breach of that principle in the span of a few minutes. The men were unlikely to die, but agony radiated from their expressions, reaching him kilometers from the bank in his storm cellar. In an instant, just like the moment Arturo had been shot on the roof of the Mint, the heist was no longer a victimless crime.</p><p>Time slowed to a stop as an unbearable guilt stunned Sergio into inaction. He was unable to avert his eyes from the scene, even as the consequences of his command burned before him. His gaze only drifted once medics arrived to put out the fire and tend to the officers. And as it stalled on the holes in the window where Palermo had been shot, a sharp kick to his gut jolted Sergio back into the present. </p><p>He couldn’t take back the orders to fire on the armored cars and erase the soldiers’ pain; nor did he want to, as it warded off the CNI’s incursion and bought them precious seconds. But he <em> could </em> still save Palermo’s life and spare his team — and any number of hostages caught in the inevitable crossfire — if they utilized those extra moments effectively. With Alicia Sierra’s attention elsewhere, addressing his counterattack, it wouldn’t matter that she had removed the ace up his sleeve. Both camps needed time to recover.</p><p>Instructing Marseille to set up the phones for a new call to the police tent, he knew exactly where to start.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This one still wasn't super Serquel-focused, but hang in there - more on their relationship is coming! Also, I'd love to hear any thoughts on the bonus Nairobi POV in there, which I added after a headache of trying to coordinate Palermo being shot through Sergio/Raquel's calls. If I use it again, it'll only be sparingly, but if it's something you all didn't like as much I will try to work around it! Thanks for reading 💕</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. ix. flying too close to the sun</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>As both Raquel and Sergio reel from his explosive attack, they negotiate a truce. The police plot their next steps, while Sergio launches the final phase of Plan Roma.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi friends! As promised, I'm back much sooner with this update. </p><p>The song for this chapter is <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/1xasoowGI2N5c4gykxKTlW?si=mfkmpBhHR4GxTQDyf8cOug">Icarus by Bastille</a>. It's a good metaphor for where we're at in the story - Sergio has gone to great lengths for his ambitions, but how far is too far? This chapter is pretty much about the consequences of those actions.</p><p>Thanks for reading, and as always, I'd love to hear what you thought in the comments 💕</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When the first bullet shot through the window on an upper floor of the bank, Raquel gasped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When a second followed, a flash of red danced across the glass, and it certainly belonged to more than just the red jumpsuits the bank’s occupants wore. This red was several shades darker.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The little time she’d had to prepare herself for Alicia’s plans didn’t fully absorb the shock of their unfolding before her eyes, and Raquel staggered backward. As her panic-stricken gaze swept the area, it found no sign of Alicia, only retreating snipers outside the command tent. Her knees started to feel weak, barely holding her up as fear and consternation overwhelmed her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Any illusion of control or ability to minimize harm she felt inside the tent revealed a mirage that left her powerless the moment Alicia ordered a shot into the bank. Yet her own loss of control worried her less than the high chance the snipers had struck. “What happened? Is she hurt?” Silence greeted her on the other end of the line, but while the Professor was likely too busy responding to the chaos inside the bank to hear her, she was too close to the tent to risk announcing his name anywhere else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first, Raquel paid little attention to the eerie silence. Her eyes were all too quickly pulled back to the scene unfolding in front of the bank, fixed on something that looked more like a declaration of war than a hostage crisis. A hand shot up to cover her lips. “They’re going in!” Inhaling deeply, she tried to rein in her volume. “They’ve got tanks, and</span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>listening?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>But no voice responded to her exasperated question, finally prompting her to yank the phone from her ear and see that the screen had gone black. She cursed under her breath; her phones always ran out of battery at the most inopportune moments. Only this time, there was no charming stranger to offer to let her use his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was no point in trying to fight technology, Raquel accepted with a low growl as she shoved the phone back into the depths of her purse. The armored cars cast threatening shadows over the bank as they rolled in, their engines drowning out the protestors’ fierce cries of opposition. Surely the Professor would have seen, would have thought of </span>
  <em>
    <span>something.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Unable to tear her eyes away from the terrifying war the tanks promised to rage, Raquel edged closer to the tent. She stood at a careful distance, apprehension written into her furrowed brow and folded arms. Her jaw had already lowered slightly, as if to deliver the warning she could no longer give, but it dropped fully as a throat cleared next to her, alerting her to someone’s presence. Alicia. </span>
  <em>
    <span>How long had she been there?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was a pretty intense phone call you were having there, huh?” The doors of the bank slid open, and even as her heart sank into her stomach at Alicia’s thinly-veiled interrogation, she couldn’t look away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not that she needed to look at Alicia to feel the smug, almost accusatory curiosity that burned in her gaze.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had to check in on Paula. She’s with my sister until this ends,” Raquel commented plainly, offering nothing more than a casual shrug. The armored cars pressed on, ignoring whatever threat assembled to strike back in the darkness of the bank’s widening doorway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alicia’s pointed stare continued to study her intently. “You know, Raquel,” the other inspector stated, stepping dangerously close now. Her eyes still didn’t turn from the bank, where the door had creaked to a stop. Less than a meter away, Alicia could certainly hear her racing heart, another suspicious act of hers to catalogue </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> because she knew Alicia was taking notes, waiting to pounce on any minor slip. “You should</span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The moment Raquel turned to scowl at Alicia, a violent explosion shook the ground beneath them, booming over the other’s words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their gazes snapped toward the bank. While pure horror shone in her eyes, Alicia’s shock didn’t fully disguise a twisted delight. Abandoning her interrogation, she returned to the tent with the haste of a general reeling from a counterattack, only with the unfounded triumph of a successful insurgent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For several moments, Raquel froze in place, unable to tear her eyes away from the blaze. It was impossible to look away, as mesmerizing as it was horrifying. The smoke thinned out to a haze before it reached the area near the tent, yet Raquel struggled to breathe as if it clouded her lungs. Tears pooled in her eyes that were only in part a result of the billows of smoke that started to grow again once the fire was extinguished.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still numb from shock, Raquel didn’t know how long she’d stood in front of the tent before she finally coerced her trembling legs to move and pushed her way inside. It was possibly the only time she was grateful for Angel sweeping in to her rescue </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> likely having noticed the faint pallor to her skin, he appeared by her side and led her to the chair she had wanted to find.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Angel asked if she was alright, and she softly nodded her confirmation. He tried to question her further, she thought, but she only half listened; her attention was already glued to the scene outside the bank, this time on the screens that displayed the bank’s exterior. Smoke clouded the image after the fires were put out, obscuring the injured men from view.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was perfect, the best we could hope for!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In stark contrast to her own reaction, Alicia’s continued glee stunned Raquel out of her daze. She blinked, struggling to comprehend the other’s enthusiasm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The best we could hope for?” She spoke in a hoarse voice, shaking her head. “Are you kidding me, Alicia? Do you not care at all about those men?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We need another armored van.” Alicia blatantly ignored her. “They can’t rely on the shock of such an attack a second time. They’re weak, we have them cornered.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, Murillo is right. Those men have second- and third-degree burns. I won’t send in any more men to be permanently disfigured.” Almost as pale as herself, Tamayo came to her defense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They fired rockets at us, and everyone in Spain saw it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not starting a war in the center of Madrid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The war has already started, Tamayo.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their conversation faded to the background of her mind as the thought of </span>
  <em>
    <span>war</span>
  </em>
  <span> tumbled around over everything else. In joining either side, she hadn’t asked to lead a war — a hostage crisis was never supposed to escalate to that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raquel didn’t know what she had expected from the Professor’s response to their attempted incursion, but a fiery explosion that scarred several men never figured among the possibilities. Violence wasn’t the Professor’s style. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joining the Professor had ultimately come down to a question of what was right, but it had also been a factor of what would cause the least harm, a threshold the police already set high when they tortured Anibal Cortes. The Professor had the moral high ground because he hadn’t tortured anyone, because even if a robbery violated the law, exposing the police for their crimes against humanity </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> and preventing them from committing more </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> was the right thing to do. She had joined the side of true justice in a black and white world where </span>
  <em>
    <span>right</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong</span>
  </em>
  <span> were distinct categories.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But how different was torture and setting men on fire, other than that one was conducted in secret whilst the other was on display for all of Madrid to see?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The lines between the two sides </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> and the lines between right and wrong </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> began to blur again, just as they had after the Professor’s impassioned speech in his hangar that had convinced her to let him go the first time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her decisions weren’t made in a vacuum, and something had for the first time shed light on tangible consequences of aligning with one side over another. Having joined the side responsible for injuring all those men, and having attempted to warn the Professor of the police’s attempted incursion, she couldn’t shake the feeling that their blood was on her hands. Of course, if the police had gotten their way, much more blood </span>
  <span>— </span>
  <em>
    <span>actual</span>
  </em>
  <span> blood, no </span>
  <span>doubt — would have been shed. But such truths only helped to a certain point, and an unsettling guilt gnawed at her stomach all the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Enough, Sierra!” Tamayo barked at a volume that stirred Raquel from her thoughts. “We’re de-escalating this situation. Maintain composure. Truce and dialogue, okay? Dialogue and truce. Is that clear?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Crystal clear, boss. Antoñanzas!” Alicia clapped her hands together. “Antoñanzas. You heard him. I want an ambulance and a surgeon, now! Let’s get them to hand over their wounded.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While the lower officers scrambled to address Alicia’s orders, her irritation found a new target; sliding into the seat opposite Raquel, she gazed at her intently. “We didn’t finish our conversation.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Angel eyed the pair warily, but he hovered behind Alicia, saying nothing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raquel gave a dry laugh, straightening up in her chair as her unfazed stare met Alicia’s. “I have nothing to say to you, Sierra.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah? What was it about Paula that got you so worked up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She locked eyes with Angel then, and although she noted his suspicion, she held her ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Paula is fine. I had to remind my sister of Paula’s soy allergy when she mentioned they got Chinese takeout last night. Is caring about my daughter a crime?” Perhaps fabricating her daughter’s allergy on the spot was unethical, but the lie seemed to work </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> suspicion lingered in Alicia’s expression, but as the gears seemed to turn in Angel’s head, searching his memory for a past mention of that allergy, he eventually gave up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A phone ringing abruptly cut off the response Raquel couldn’t hear, effectively curtailing their conversation. Alicia shot her a final distrustful look before crossing the short distance to the phone, hand outstretched for the earpiece she wore to communicate with the Professor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A verbal spar with Alicia had somehow calmed her, even as she tread on the brink of discovery; if only because it distracted her from the scene outside the tent. Raquel finally rose from the chair, curious to hear how the Professor would justify his latest explosive response.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, perfect. Just the arsonist I wanted to talk to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen, Sierra. You don’t want the war you tried to start.” The low register of the Professor’s voice, vaguely daunting, implied a threat she hoped never saw the light of day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t I?” Tamayo shook his head fervently, motioning for Alicia to stop. She dismissed his threats with an absent hand wave and continued, “You’re not an ethics professor, right? Because you just fired two rockets in the center of Madrid and joined al-Qaeda’s side.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In her periphery she saw Tamayo rub his face and duck away from the conversation for a moment, and when he returned holding another headset, he shoved it in Raquel’s direction. Her eyes widened, and she froze before accepting the device. After having been left in the dark to Alicia’s latest scheme, being included in the negotiations was the last turn of events she would have expected. Then again, her de-escalation strategies were exactly what the operation needed at that moment. Pleased Tamayo at least recognized that, she adjusted the communication headset over her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll fix my mistakes. I called to offer you the chance to fix yours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I’m not</span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do you propose we do that?” Raquel cleared her throat, inserting herself into the conversation over Alicia. The look Alicia gave her could burn her as much as the flames did the officers currently being treated in ambulances, but she didn’t let the woman’s usual threat intimidate her. “We won’t send a surgeon into the camp of the side that just set several men on fire.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a beat as the Professor hesitated, perhaps similarly surprised by her sudden involvement in negotiations again. “I won’t put him in the hands of a torturer who tried to kill two of our own.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lucky for you, I tortured no one,” Raquel countered, smirking. Even as she saw the genuine need for a surgeon inside the bank, the response rolled off her lips on impulse instead of the attempts to promote </span>
  <em>
    <span>dialogue and truce</span>
  </em>
  <span> as Tamayo emphasized. It was easy to forget that the context between them had changed, and they weren’t the same Professor and Inspectora bantering in front of the Mint. But her horror at his response to their attack had left a mark that inflected her tone before she thought twice about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I won’t send him out.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Him? </span>
  </em>
  <span>Who did the bullet strike, if not Nairobi? “Face the consequences.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In any case, she was relieved his response followed her own so quickly, stopping her from having to argue to send their wounded out when she knew death inside the bank was more humane than whatever Alicia would put him through in the tent </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> or elsewhere. Even if </span>
  <em>
    <span>humane</span>
  </em>
  <span> was a bit of a stretch, given the cruelty of the original attack that led them to this point.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I still can’t send in a surgeon. But I can offer you a truce for the next 48 hours as a gesture of goodwill. That way, you can assess how serious the wound is, and maybe you’ll change your mind.” He wouldn’t. All the others should know that, too, but she suspected she was the only one who did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I accept the truce, but listen to me. Palermo will survive with or without your help.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As the line went dead, Raquel grimaced at Alicia’s theatrical eye roll. “Okay, sure. He can have another 48 hours to live.” The bright laughter that followed chilled her again, and Tamayo avoided Alicia’s gaze, seemingly sharing her discomfort. Both knew that the second the truce expired, Alicia would be poised to strike again. All of her musings over strategic interventions at the beginning had eroded into an unrestrained desire for violence and bloodshed </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> whatever it took to crush her opponents.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Raquel feared for anyone who stepped in her path before Alicia was fully satisfied.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Professor had ordered the strike on the armored cars, but the flames revolted Sergio to his core. He lost his grip on the domineering persona at the helm of the heist, slipping back into his own mind that planned DEFCON2 as an emergency response, never intending to let the heist escalate to that point. As deep as horror and shock settled within him, he just as quickly forced out those sentiments to return to the mindset of the Professor, who could not show an ounce of regret in negotiating with the police. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sergio never expected the police to cave to his demands for a surgeon inside the bank, so their refusal came as no surprise. They didn’t need a surgeon, though </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> they needed </span>
  <em>
    <span>time, </span>
  </em>
  <span>which the 48-hour truce secured. Although he had wanted to avoid major injuries, the team inside the bank was prepared to handle anything. If Palermo needed surgery, they would operate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A few weeks of training didn’t grant them medical degrees however, and the moment the call to the police tent ended, he’d gotten the actual surgeon in Pakistan on standby. Sighing deeply, he braced himself for the next call.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nairobi?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In Palermo’s stead, she had become something of an unofficial leader, but he feared the tensions this would create with Tokyo, who had previously demanded to share power with himself and Palermo. But that was precisely why he didn’t want her in charge. Her quick instincts sometimes saved them, but more often they gave way to temper flares instead of the cool they needed now. Nairobi was a much better fit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Profe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How is Palermo?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sedated and stable, but he’s not out of the woods.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Were you able to examine the wound?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Si. There wasn’t an exit wound, so we waited to finish blood transfusions to stabilize him before scanning for the bullet. Can you see?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hold on…” One of the cameras aimed to the area of the bank’s lobby where Palermo lay on a makeshift operating table. Nairobi entered the shot first, making direct eye contact with the camera that displayed the image on his monitors, then the rest of the team all already wearing plastic scrubs and gloves. The ultrasound machine near Palermo’s head was fuzzy and unreadable from a distance, so he pressed a few buttons until the camera zoomed to display the image in greater focus. Up close, a visibly uncomfortable Palermo seemed annoyed with the process. “There.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helsinki slid the scanning device down Palermo’s sternum, then down to his stomach area. As the device reached the skin of his lower right abdomen, the machine started beeping as if it had detected something. On the ultrasound screen, it was difficult to tell where exactly the white blur representing the bullet ended up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Realizing the device hovered over the area where his liver should be, his breath hitched. They had nowhere near enough time for Palermo to recover from such a shot. “It’s not in his liver, is it?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ha! Always knew my liver would kill me.” Palermo snickered, sending him into a violent coughing fit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Palermo,” Sergio cautioned in a low voice, gripping the radio buttons tighter in his distress. “Now isn’t the time to joke about your life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>always</span>
  </em>
  <span> the time to joke about life, hermano. You can’t be so serious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As Sergio responded with an exasperated sigh, Nairobi cut in again. “Focus! Look at the image </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> I don’t think it’s in his liver. I think it’s between two organs. So the liver and… the gallbladder?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keep him stable,” he instructed the team, leaning forward to resume the call with the surgeon. Within moments, the images on his screen transmitted to their base in Pakistan, and the surgeon confirmed the bullet had lodged in the side of Palermo’s gallbladder, not his liver.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s the gallbladder.” The words slipped out around a breath of relief as he radioed the bank again. “You’ll need to remove it. Put him under and have Rio connect to the surgeon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The moment he gave his last instruction, Sergio let the radio fall onto the console and pushed himself to his feet. He loosened his tie as the air suddenly felt stifling, closing in as if to trap him under the weight of his errors. Although Palermo would likely survive such a common procedure, the slight chance of something going wrong haunted him. It could </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span> go wrong, Palermo could die. And then not only would the team have lost the only person who could guarantee the key to their escape, but he would have lost a brother. Again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And there he went again: once more crossing the line between Sergio and the Professor, unable to compartmentalize personal and professional concerns.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No personal relationships, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he had said. That was the second most important rule, after no victims. But he’d already screwed himself with that, hadn’t he? </span>
  <em>
    <span>No personal relationships, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but he had once again put someone close to him in charge inside the bank. </span>
  <em>
    <span>No personal relationships, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but it was primarily concern for Nairobi as a person, not as a colleague, that inspired his panic leading them to this point. </span>
  <em>
    <span>No personal relationships, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but it was because of his enduring love for Raquel that he tried to bring her onto his side, leading to the call that spared one team member at the expense of another. </span>
  <em>
    <span>No personal relationships, </span>
  </em>
  <span>yet the thought of losing Nairobi terrified him just as much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was in over his head, drowning in his commitments and connections to other people, and he desperately needed something to ground him to shore. If he couldn’t force out the emotional side that tied him to others, his judgment would continue to be clouded and lead to too many more close calls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Standing there, watching the seconds tick past as Palermo’s fate hung in the air, he was only going to spiral deeper into his nerves. He needed to get away </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> he needed to </span>
  <em>
    <span>think. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Let me know if there’s an emergency,” Sergio growled to Marseille before turning to change into the workout gear stashed among his clothes just for this purpose. With the boxing gloves left somewhere near the punching bag, he could begin to clear his mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Each swing to the bag shot down a different worry that antagonized him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He</span>
  </em>
  <span> held the power and could crush his fears before they shook his foundations and destroyed his confidence. Exercise centered him, and for a few moments, his mind went blank save for the crash of his gloves against the bag and his own labored breathing. Raquel’s abrupt end to their call earlier, the ongoing operation on Palermo, Palermo’s possible death, whether he would see Raquel again, whether they would all make it out alive </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> his biggest concerns dissolved into nothingness with each strike. As his swings silenced everything else, the forceful blows left no room for more concerns to arise.</span>
</p><p><span>A clearer head allowed Sergio to take a step back and plot his next moves from a logical, strategic standpoint, not from a perspective too grounded in others. </span><em><span>Mens sana in corpore sano</span></em> <span>—</span><span> it was the surest way to return to the Professor’s mindset. The rest of the heist </span><em><span>needed</span></em><span> the Professor, with his clear judgment guided by reason and facts, not his personal desire for people to live. People </span><em><span>would</span></em><span> live, he had to remember, if only he listened to reason. If he listened to the plan.</span></p><p>
  <span>So when Marseille called for Sergio minutes later, he tugged off the boxing gloves and returned to the command area much less shaken before, some degree of confidence restored.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Geneva is interrogating Lisboa.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His jaw tensed, and he inhaled sharply. “Is this why she left earlier?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Think so. She thinks Lisbon is hiding something. Said if she’s working with you, she’ll find out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sergio had always feared Raquel’s involvement would rouse suspicion around her, although he hadn’t been certain ahead of time what form the suspicion would take. But because of his foresight, there was another plan in place that was triggered the moment Alicia subtly accused Raquel of crossing sides. The results undoubtedly risked forcing him out of the clear mental state he just managed to re-enter, and the plan itself risked placing a bigger target on Raquel’s head, but there was no time to debate the pros and cons. Ultimately, the risk of Alicia’s continued interrogation was larger than all of that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right,” Sergio nodded. “Fine. Launch the final phase of Plan Roma.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marseille’s unreadable gaze lingered on him for a moment longer than it should have, but he doubted the other would disobey an order. When he nodded a moment later and got up to leave, Sergio turned and focused his attention to the screens. He had another call to make.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Less than a second after the call ended, Alicia began to plot her next moves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If we can’t go in there for 48 hours, we’re going to be ready to attack the moment that truce expires.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just as Raquel expected. “Are we sure that’s a good idea?” Alicia shot daggers her way as she dared question the plan. Regardless of her loyalties, attacking right away was an illogical and needlessly deadly move, and she refused to sit back while Alicia treated the hostages like expendable pawns. “Look, they don’t need the entire 48 hours to heal their wounded. They’re going to expect us to go in, so they’ll have planned some sort of retaliation. And it might be worse than what we just saw.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Professor’s aversion to violence was no longer predictable. Perhaps that was why his counterattack shook her so much </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> under her leadership, she allowed no direct attacks, and he hadn’t been forced to play his cards in the first heist. Now, he had proven capable of shutting down an incursion and willing to resort to extremes if the police forced his hand. If he listened to the police’s planning through the microphone activated on her phone, next time, his response would be all the more effective and brutal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If we don’t go in, how will we ever end this? Don’t you want it to be over?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do,” Raquel insisted, nodding, “but I want it to be over with the fewest injuries possible. Attacking right away is what they expect us to do. We’ll fall right into their next trap.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sierra, shut up and listen to Murillo,” Tamayo grunted. Arms crossed, a frown ingrained in his sullen expression, he nodded toward her. A vein bulged in his forehead, and she suspected he would suggest whichever strategy was most likely to lower his blood pressure. In this case, the opposite of the plan that led to the barbecue outside the bank.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, Alicia mirrored her surprise in raised eyebrows and slightly widened eyes, and neither were fully sure how to navigate Raquel’s apparent new influence over negotiations. Originally she might have been wild card bait to throw off the Professor, but her skill set was undeniably what they currently needed to de-escalate rising tensions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even if she didn’t agree with the police ideologically this time, she was relieved to have just a little more sway, if only because preventing harm remained her top priority.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine.” The venom in Alicia’s tone suggested it was far from fine, but as Raquel crossed her arms to her chest to show she wouldn’t be intimidated, she didn’t care. “What do you suggest we do, then, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Inspectora?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Amusement shone in her eyes and in the smirk that curved on her lips at the pejorative use of her former title. “We tried sneak attacks, we tried going after the Professor himself, we tried an invasion. Maybe it’s time to give up on stopping the robbery while it’s happening.” Shrugging at the murmurs of disapproval that echoed around her, she continued, “In both of these robberies, there have been no reports of hurting hostages, right? So what they do while inside the bank doesn’t matter if you can stop them from getting away with the gold.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go after their escape…” Alicia mumbled distantly, as if she were actually considering the possibility.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Exactly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The suggestion was risky, she knew that. It had the potential to seriously disrupt the robbers’ escape if Alicia collected enough evidence to piece together part of their plans. But the Professor was clever, and he’d already been so many steps ahead of the police; she was confident Alicia would find little. The police would try their usual tactics of scanning for tunnels and blocking off sewers, but that would be useless. There would be another way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hoped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” Alicia conceded with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Let’s review the evidence from that fake escape of theirs earlier to rule out possibilities. They wouldn’t attempt the same escape twice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The clustered officers broke apart, Tamayo marching to the computers on the other side of the tent with his fists clenched, Raquel slinking into her former seat, Alicia digging into a box of donuts she’d abandoned earlier in front of the control panel. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raquel first located the floor plans of the bank, browsing them to familiarize herself with the layout and scope out potential exit points. Alicia was right they probably wouldn’t plot the same escape twice, which at first pushed her toward the upper floors as opposed to the gold vault; she doubted any half-finished tunnels under the bank led to his current hideout, not to mention the massive concrete defenses that surrounded the building.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not long after Raquel started studying the plans, Alicia slid into the seat across from her, biting into the second half of a pink-frosted donut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, is everything alright with Paula? Did she avoid the soy?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought your pointless interrogation was over,” she huffed without looking up, flipping to pages that displayed the layout of the gold vault. Even if it was likely not relevant to their escape, perhaps something in its structure would provide a different clue. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m just trying to show concern for your daughter, Raquel.” There Alicia went again, playing innocent to conceal more nefarious motives </span>
  <span>— but while Prieto weaponized her daughter against her, she was less concerned for Paula’s safety with Alicia’s interrogations.</span>
  <span> Alicia’s target wasn’t Paula; it was her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you truly cared about Paula you wouldn’t suggest unnecessary attacks that keep me here instead of at home with her.” With the calm of a truce neither would dare to break this early, at least for one night she could leave when she wanted and spend time at home with her daughter before shipping her off to her sister’s again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really? Your complete opposition to attacks is because of your daughter?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And the hostages, Alicia. This isn’t anything new.” Finally, Raquel glanced up, unable to mask her growing irritation. “I was told I was here to find the Professor, but the reason I was brought onto the first robbery was my de-escalation techniques. I can solve this without harming innocent people.” She paused, leaning back, delivering a silent challenge through her stare. “Or at least I could have, if you wouldn’t have planned an invasion.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alicia accepted the challenge with an incredulous look, countering, “Do you expect me to believe your motivations have nothing to do with your brief fling with the Professor? Come on, Raquel. You had an intense phone call at the same time Nairobi got pushed out of that sniper’s path.” She paused. “I mean, I think that </span>
  <em>
    <span>Palermo</span>
  </em>
  <span> guy is more important to their plan than she is, so props to you for making my work easier. But don’t think I don’t know what you were trying to do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her heart sank in her chest at the inevitable blatant accusation, but she returned to the pages scattered before her and fixed her gaze on diagrams of the flooding mechanism inside the vault. Her irritation was barely strong enough to hide the fear mounting inside her. Alicia was closer than ever before to blasting her cover apart, and she cursed herself internally for being so careless as to call the Professor meters away from the same people who were out to get him. Of course that plan would never have worked </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> she only traded one injured robber for another. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, you don’t. I’ve been trying to tell you what I was doing and you won’t listen,” Raquel managed to grit out in an even tone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look, I know Rubio is dumb enough to believe your stories, but that’s because we all know he’s wanted in your pants for years.” She barely resisted a snort at that. “I, however, see through you. And I’m telling you that if you’re working with the Professor, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>will</span>
  </em>
  <span> find out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alicia refused to accept her eye roll as a real answer, and she leaned forward to gently tilt Raquel’s chin up with her thumb, forcing their gazes to meet. “Be careful, Raquel. You don’t want to throw your entire life away for that man.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As Alicia finished the last bite of her donut and pushed herself up from the table, Raquel stared blankly at the blueprints in front of her. Her heart had started racing, and illogically, she feared everyone else in the room could hear it thumping in her chest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her fear was unfounded, she told herself. The emergency phone was dead, and it was so archaic she doubted there was a charger for it. And unless Alicia broke into her house to steal the postcards and paper cranes, no traces to the Professor condemned her. There would </span>
  <em>
    <span>be</span>
  </em>
  <span> nothing on her, even if she had to burn all of the physical evidence tying her to him herself. Even if losing the only physical memories she had of him might crush her. For a few moments, Raquel sat still, letting those thoughts register as she steadied herself with deep breaths.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As the fear of discovery hanging over her head lost its power, Raquel approached the plans with a clearer mind. She studied the different sheets breaking down the gold vault, from the basic blueprints to the chamber that flooded and diagrams of that security mechanism. How had they managed to weld something onto the chamber that allowed them to dive without drowning inside? Did that have anything to do with their escape plan? Would they submerge the entire basement in water?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If the man called Palermo was the key to their plan, how did he fit into that?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Endless questions turned in Raquel’s mind until the phone ringing interrupted her train of thoughts. When Tamayo pushed her to lead the call again, she ignored Alicia’s quiet, resigned indignation and accepted a headset.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello again, Professor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Inspectora.” The way the name fell off his lips sent an inexplicable shiver through her, though she couldn’t place it as nerves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I must say, I’m surprised to hear from you so soon. You know, you have 47 hours to go before we need to negotiate again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, but I’m not calling to negotiate. You see, Inspectora, I was actually wondering how I can be certain you plan to uphold the truce for the next 47 hours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her brow furrowed. What was he planning? “Well, Professor, you have our word. And as I’m sure you can see, there are no more tanks on the lawn of the bank. I’m not sure what else you need.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I have your word, I assume you won’t mind announcing it to the members of the media, who were just told to expect a statement from you in the next hour?” He paused. “You know, you can go all out with it. Plan a feast to show your commitment to the truce, make a PR opportunity out of it. I’m sure the hostages would appreciate it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A feast?” Raquel asked incredulously. “What kind of feast?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I don’t know. Trays of paella, some beers… I’m sure the police can find a way to cater a spectacle that the media will eat up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alicia rolled her eyes, but Tamayo seemed to wave it off with his hand. He was probably too exhausted to fight more, even with ridiculous demands like this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine. We’ll have your feast. Goodbye, Professor.” She was willing to cater to his whims as long as the truce remained intact, and none of the others dared voice their disapproval. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going back to my files.” Raquel pushed past Tamayo and Alicia to settle down in front of the plans she had been studying. Alicia called for Antoñanzas, passing off the task of organizing the feast to him. Angel followed, probably not trusting the lower officer to pull it off on his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Focusing on the blueprints was nearly impossible as Raquel sat restless, agitated, unable to pinpoint what exactly felt odd about the Professor’s plan. He could stir up the media on his own without the police’s help, and she doubted food supplies were already running low inside the bank. Maybe the feast was a cover to sneak something else into the bank </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> but what? Medical equipment?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The longer she focused on the bank’s blueprints scattered before her, nothing sticking in her mind that was too preoccupied with the Professor’s other plan, the less sense any of it made. Exhaustion wore her down from three days of working non-stop in a high stress environment that she had left for reasons that were quickly coming back to her. As a yawn shuddered through her entire body, Raquel leaned back in her seat and rubbed her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally accepting that she was unlikely to discover any new leads before a proper night’s sleep, she stretched her arms out and stood to leave. She grabbed her bag and headed out of the tent, stopping next to where Tamayo and Angel oversaw the trucks coming in to deliver the feast. A few meters away, Alicia was addressing the media.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now that he’s getting the spectacle he wants, I’m heading out. The bank’s plans will make more sense after I’ve slept.” Raquel informed them, but only Angel glanced her way, acknowledging her with a soft smile and a nod. Well, at least Tamayo wasn’t stopping her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She found her way to the edge of the perimeter outside the bank, in the space away from the protestors that had been cleared for the catering vans to pull up. She’d have to call an uber to get her car from her house before picking up Paula, but the extra trip would be worth it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she tapped the uber app on her phone, the shadows on the ground beneath her seemed to shift. Frowning, Raquel spun around, but she only saw the motionless catering vans. Maybe one looked slightly closer to her now </span>
  <span>— </span>
  <span>she sighed and dismissed her momentary confusion as exhaustion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The shadows stirred again, but this time, she noticed a second too late. When a man threw his arms around her shoulders, she gasped loudly and managed to kick behind her to try to ward off the attacker </span>
  <span>—</span>
  <span> but he anticipated her strategic movements and blocked her. Her nails dug into his skin, clawing it as she futilely attempted to wrench off his grip. By the time she realized he applied pressure on a certain point on her neck, the outside of the bank was beginning to disappear behind widening black spots.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Estoy contigo,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>she thought she heard him whisper, she wasn’t sure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The world went black as she fell limp in his arms.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. x. I see the empire falling to her knees</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Helloooo, is anyone still out there 👀 I genuinely did not mean for that 1.5 month hiatus to happen, and I’m sorry for not updating last weekend as I promised on twitter! I had a really rough time organizing my thoughts for this one, and I wasn’t satisfied at all with Sergio’s POV until last night. Characterization is important to me, and this is such a critical point in the story, so I didn’t want to post until I had it right. The good news is we’re mostly done with the sort of internal debates that were tripping me up! So hopefully, I’ll be back much sooner next time.</p><p>This chapter’s title comes from The Wind by The Fray - a reference to Plan Roma/the Roman empire, but also some of Sergio’s internal struggles. However, as the song overall doesn’t fit the chapter much, I have two others to recommend: listen to <a>exile by Taylor Swift</a> during Raquel’s POV and <a>Fine Line by Harry Styles</a> during Sergio’s POV. Buckle up, because it’s a very emotional ride 🤭</p><p>Thanks for your continued support, and as always, hope you enjoy 💖</p><p>(also I'm so sorry if you got several email notifications for this - it's not wanting to post to the serquel tag so I keep having to repost, eek)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The first thing Raquel noticed as her eyes slowly blinked open was the back end of a windowless catering van, where she lay stuffed somewhere between a cooler and an empty beer keg. The second was that the police badge around her neck was gone, as were her bag and her gun. Face paling, she pushed herself into a half-sitting position on her elbows, and her gaze searched the cramped area for something she could use as a weapon against her captor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hola, señorita Lisboa.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raquel shot up with a low growl at Marseille’s vague Slavic accent, wincing as she bumped her head against the metal side of the van.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the </span>
  <em>
    <span>hell, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Marseille?” Her features hardened into an accusatory glare at the man speaking over his shoulder from the driver’s seat at the front, but he wasn’t fazed, never moving his eyes from the road ahead. “You can’t just kidnap me!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, Lisboa. Professor’s orders.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” Raquel muttered with a scoff. Of </span>
  <em>
    <span>course</span>
  </em>
  <span> this was all part of the Professor’s plan. Just when she had convinced Tamayo not to enter the bank, just when she’d returned to the head of negotiations, he stole control from underneath her feet. Tamayo was under control, Alicia’s suspicions were under control—</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You don’t want to throw your entire life away for that man.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>An involuntary shudder coursed through Raquel as Alicia’s warning echoed in her mind. Whatever part she played in the Professor’s plans, whatever he intended to happen to her once he escaped, that felt exactly like what was going on. She could hardly return to her former life after abandoning the police to join the Professor, if that was what he planned. What would happen to Paula? Her breath caught in her throat at the thought — and what of her mother, whose mental state was gradually deteriorating?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let me go. I don’t care if it’s an order.” Alicia and Tamayo would never let her near the command tent if they discovered where she had been, but that didn’t matter so long as she could ensure Paula was safe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t do that, Lisboa.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What am I, your- your hostage?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s what they’ll think,” Marseille nodded as the van rounded the corner down a somewhat decrepit alley, slowing to a stop next to a parked Estrella Galicia delivery truck. He passed a blindfold to her over the seat while grabbing a plain black balaclava — a concerning deviation from the usual Dali mask — for himself. “Put this on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Panic continued to swell in Raquel’s chest as she fell silent again. Alicia was never going to buy the story of a kidnapping, no matter how well the Professor thought he orchestrated it. Disappearing hours after accusations of treason were made against her was too suspicious to be a coincidence. Before, Alicia had no proof of her changed loyalties, but now, Raquel couldn’t swallow the feeling that this delivered her confirmation on a silver platter. There was no turning back, she realized, and her stomach lurched.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the blindfold still hung limp in her hand after a few moments, Marseille frowned. “You have to look like a hostage. You’re going to transfer to a different car, with a new driver. Cover your trail.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A stubborn part of her wanted to refuse to cooperate and figure out how to fight her way out of captivity, but the minutes spent unconscious were an insufficient nap, and exhaustion was starting to catch up to her. Besides, as he informed her, he was only following orders. It was the Professor she needed to fight, not Marseille — and suddenly, her blindfold and his balaclava made sense. Being in Marseille’s presence was hardly a crime on its own; only if she were found among known members of the gang could she be implicated. And they had already accounted for everyone inside the bank.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suddenly light-headed, she braced herself against a container of unused kitchenware.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Exhaling sharply, Raquel grit her teeth and begrudgingly slipped the black blindfold over her eyes. Marseille climbed out of the front of the van and, seconds later, the back doors swung open for him to lead her out and guide her to the next vehicle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Settled in the back of the Estrella Galicia truck between cases of beer, she tore the blindfold off her face the moment the doors slammed shut and the truck began to move.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Buenas tardes, señorita Lisboa,” a balding man with glasses in the driver’s seat greeted her, grinning at her through the rearview mirror. “Me llamo Benjamin.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Buenas tardes, Benjamin.” Grimacing, Raquel tried to stretch her legs out, sighing when she met the resistance of more beer cases. As her new driver took a sharp turn down a different road, she realized </span>
  <em>
    <span>Benjamin </span>
  </em>
  <span>wasn’t a city name. He had to be associated with the Professor, or at least Marseille, if he knew her name — but if he wasn’t part of the band, who was he?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Benjamin must have sensed her unease or perhaps the frown that had curved onto her lips, because as he met her gaze in the rearview mirror again, he offered her a sympathetic smile. “Don’t worry, señorita Lisboa, </span>
  <em>
    <span>estoy contigo.” </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, how those words were beginning to haunt her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, she returned the smile and gave a soft nod. “Good to know, Benjamin, thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raquel leaned against the side of the truck, making herself as comfortable as she possibly could in such a cramped space. Some minutes later, Benjamin instructed her to put on the blindfold again, and she was escorted to another vehicle with a new driver who greeted her with her city name and the all-too-familiar phrase </span>
  <em>
    <span>estoy contigo.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Several drivers and several vehicles later, Raquel had lost track of time. Her only measure of time moving forward was the sun that gradually sank lower in the sky, and as she met Benjamin in a grocery truck, the sun slipped below the horizon. By the time he led her to Marseille in a fading red hatchback, darkness had started to erase the pinks and reds of the sunset.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> going to the Professor, right?” Raquel grumbled as soon as Marseille set off, as the longer she spent bouncing from driver to driver, the more she started to doubt the intentions behind his plan.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mmm.” Marseille nodded. “We’ll be there soon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was quickly pitch black, and although she saw the car pull onto the freeway, she couldn’t place them at any specific point outside Madrid. A few signs indicated they couldn’t be far from the city, but it was difficult to be sure how far from the bank she’d traveled. As the car followed one of the road exits, her heartbeat picked up at the thought that they must be close to the Professor’s hiding spot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annoyed at herself for almost feeling </span>
  <em>
    <span>nervous</span>
  </em>
  <span> like a schoolgirl about to see her crush for the first time after summer break, she closed her eyes and willed herself to recall the starkly different barrage of emotions that had been her first reaction when her game of musical chairs with the Professor’s associates began: disbelief that she’d become something of a hostage. Fury at the Professor for removing her from the position and control she had just gotten back, and for ruining her plans to spend the night with Paula. Irritation at being left out of the loop on the police’s plans </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> those of the side she was actually supposed to be on. And, though she couldn’t identify the feeling, heartache that these were the circumstances of their reunion after imagining something much different for so long.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sopping wet ground of the reservoir and a series of poorly lit corridors created a maze that tested Raquel’s patience after an already tiresome journey. Once she had climbed the ladder to the Professor’s base, she stormed inside, propelled forward by the anger she was no longer able to contain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t hesitate as her eyes landed upon his immobile figure in front of a set of computer screens — and then she locked eyes with him the same moment he looked her way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Briefly, she faltered, almost knocked from her feet at the intensity of his gaze. Her mind drew a blank, unable to recall the accusations that had burned on her tongue just moments ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only one thought spoke above the static in her mind: </span>
  <em>
    <span>It was him.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Knowing this was her ultimate destination could not have prepared Raquel for the destabilizing effect of his nearness. A shiver coursed through her as his piercing gaze didn’t waver, but she was only aware of its strength, unable to discern the individual emotions hidden underneath. They were carefully obscured behind a steely expression, lips set into a hard line, jaw tense, as if he struggled to hold back just as much as she did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was no easier to read her own feelings in that moment. Her curated inventory of emotions dissolved the moment their eyes met, and Marseille, the heist, the room around them disappeared, because </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> was all her mind could register.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Marseille announced he was going to cook something and slipped behind Raquel into a tiny kitchen, reality materialized before her again, and she blinked, stunned. The present knocked into her with the same force as had the sight of Sergio across the room, reminding her of her intentions. All her fire restored, she continued toward him, nails carving red half-moons into her palm as her fists clenched. She couldn’t let herself be distracted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this all just a game to you?” Despite the time she’d had to rehearse a speech during the journey to the storm reservoir, Raquel’s mind had been unable to process her new reality, and she arrived without a clear strategy. The words rolled off her lips on impulse, demanding the question that had been hanging over her head since she regained consciousness inside the catering van.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sergio remained silent, almost crestfallen for a split second — then, just as quickly as that faint sliver of emotion flickered in his eyes, the Professor’s quiet coldness returned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked the same as he had in the bathroom at Hanoi the moment after she accused him of being the Professor. Blank expression, hands firm at his side, a mannequin if she didn’t know better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She drew in a sharp breath, taking a few steps closer, refusing to accept his silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Care to tell me why you staged my kidnapping instead of waiting fifteen minutes until I got home to clear things up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Under the cold exterior, something seemed to stir again, almost a flash of pain — but he cleared his throat and held onto perfect neutrality. “Geneva accused you of switching sides. It triggered that phase of the plan.” When she rolled her eyes, hands on her hips, he continued in a matter-of-fact tone, “I knew recruiting you would be dangerous, so I wrote in a safeguard. If anyone accused you of working with me, you would be removed from the situation. They had to think we took you hostage. It was an automatic trigger, it could be no other way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you never stopped for a second to consider how that would look? Less than an hour after Alicia accuses me of switching sides, the people she accused me of joining kidnap me? They’ll think I’ve run off to join you, and Alicia will go to any length to prove it. It’s as good as a confession.” She took another step forward, eyes darkening. “She had </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span> on me, but you just gave her proof.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not with the evidence Marseille planted at your house before he took you. Anyone can be pressured to switch sides if there are plastic explosives in their daughter’s room.” Her face reddened, prompting him to hastily add, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Fake </span>
  </em>
  <span>plastic explosives.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alicia will see through it, especially if they’re fake. They won’t believe for a </span>
  <em>
    <span>second </span>
  </em>
  <span>I went against my will, even though I most certainly did.” She felt her stomach drop. “If she finds the fake plastic explosives, she’ll also find the paper cranes you sent me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Marseille took those,” he said softly, flicking his glasses up his nose. “I don’t want to presume anything, but they’re with the original postcards in the bag of your clothes he packed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thoughtfulness of saving the messages disappeared under her irritation that Marseille had invaded her privacy, and Raquel channeled the latter feeling into the fight she itched to pick.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you really expect Alicia to believe any of it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She won’t—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Even without the paper cranes,” Raquel interrupted, “she’ll find a way to prove I joined willingly, or she’ll create one. They’ll take Paula away from me.” Tears had started to form in her eyes, to her dismay, and she sniffled a little in protest. Her watery voice betrayed efforts to conceal how overwhelmed she was getting as she continued, “Maybe they’ll give her back to Alberto, you know? Because he might have abused multiple women, but hey, at least he didn’t commit treason.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lisboa—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lisboa.” She let out a dry laugh. It was easier to call out how much of a farce he’d made of her involvement in his plans in removing her from the place she was most useful than to listen to his excuses. “Are we still pretending you think I’m a part of </span>
  <em>
    <span>la banda?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Am I, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Professor? </span>
  </em>
  <span>Then why am I kept in the dark not only to Alicia’s plans, but yours? Then why didn’t you let me stay where I could keep the police in check? Why didn’t you let me stay where I could actually help?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sergio hesitated. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But Lisboa, you </span>
  <em>
    <span>weren’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>helping,” he countered after a moment in a cutting voice that grew in its resolve as his questions fired back at her. “Why is my captain clinging to life in the bank? Why did I have to launch missiles in the center of Madrid?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Any distress about how little control she had over her fate, about how overwhelmed she was getting in the moment, faded underneath her growing exasperation with his cool front and careful redirecting of blame. Raquel had crept progressively closer during their argument, forcing him backward, but he showed no discomfort at her closing in on him. He showed no emotion at all, and that fueled her fire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tamayo didn’t put me back in charge of negotiations until after your missiles, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>removed me from the situation before I could manage him.” She pressed on, cornering him against the control panel in front of his computers, though she was more than a meter away. “Don’t you dare try to project the consequences of </span>
  <em>
    <span>your </span>
  </em>
  <span>decisions onto me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He refused to meet her gaze, and she fought a smirk as he fidgeted uncomfortably in place. When he finally looked her way again, the ice in his stare wiped the satisfaction from hers; he stilled and stood up straighter, as if he’d managed to regain control of himself. Of something inside him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If Tamayo has changed his position, it won’t matter that you’re not there. We have over 40 hours left of the truce. That’s enough time to prepare in advance for his attacks without having to resort to… extremes.” He paused, “And you’ll be here, away from Alicia’s interrogations and unable to interfere with the plan.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The air rushed out of her lungs as if his words had delivered a silent kick to her gut. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It won’t matter that I’m not there? Unable to interfere with the plan?” Raquel demanded in a hoarse voice, continuing forward. “Is that how little you think of me? As nothing more than an interference with your success?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even when dealing with the Professor before, there had been a certain level of professional respect he had met. He asked her about her orgasms, he tarnished her reputation, he laid traps — but he’d never belittled her. Not like this. Not like the worst of her former colleagues.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That the same man who at one point cared enough to risk his freedom for her reduced her value to nothing so easily </span>
  <em>
    <span>stung.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Tears pricked in her eyes again, and she grew even more annoyed, this time with herself too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lisboa—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, you’re going to listen to me.” She barely contained her rage under an even tone, jabbing her finger in his direction, an accusation. “I don’t know what crawled up your ass, but I didn’t push Palermo in front of that window. I didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>make </span>
  </em>
  <span>him execute his rescue attempt so poorly.” Another step closer, “And maybe Alicia can’t interrogate me here, but she </span>
  <em>
    <span>can </span>
  </em>
  <span>manipulate Tamayo into attacking again without me there to shut her down. You might not have a choice but to use force.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, but Palermo would not have gone after Nairobi had you not called—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And then Nairobi would be dead!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Palermo </span>
  <em>
    <span>might</span>
  </em>
  <span> die!” He let out an exasperated sigh, running a hand through his hair. “Palermo… </span>
  <em>
    <span>cannot</span>
  </em>
  <span> die. You don’t understand, Lisboa—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then </span>
  <em>
    <span>make</span>
  </em>
  <span> me understand!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The entire plan hinges on Palermo’s ability to get the gold out of the bank.” Sergio paused, seeming more and more anxious as he elaborated. “If Palermo is dead, everyone else is dead, in jail, or wherever Alicia took Rio being tortured for information they do not have. You weren’t able to warn me about the fake secrets, you couldn’t stop either of Alicia’s attacks, and Palermo was shot only after your call.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He glanced at her, hesitating, as if withholding another thought. Arching an eyebrow, Raquel crossed her arms and waited as he nudged his glasses up again. “I shouldn’t have gotten you involved.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All at once, her features hardened, concealing her fury almost as expertly as he had moments before. “How fucking convenient of you to regret recruiting me </span>
  <em>
    <span>after </span>
  </em>
  <span>you’ve screwed me over,” Raquel hissed, letting her gaze wander as she continued. “You know, I regret joining you, too. I don’t care how right you are, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew </span>
  </em>
  <span>I was risking everything, and for what? To be discarded like a used pawn by both sides, apparently.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No matter the path she chose, Raquel had been screwed; either let herself get blackmailed by Prieto and betray her ideals or stand up for what was right and potentially lose her daughter. Joining the Professor was meant to preserve her integrity, but he’d ended up belittling her all the same. He’d stolen her agency the moment he took her hostage, and now here he was, ignoring her concerns, refusing to assume responsibility for his actions, and regretting recruiting her when he’d already bulldozed through her life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Really, why had she expected anything different? Regardless of his intent, she was forever a casualty of his plans. Only this time, with her daughter’s safety in question, the damage might be irreparable. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a few moments of deafening silence, she heard a sigh then his curiously dejected response, “Plan Roma is over. You no longer have to work with us if that is your choice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sudden change in demeanor unsettled her, and she didn’t let her guard down, fueling her irritation with this new detail. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Roma. </span>
  </em>
  <span>That’s incredibly fitting, isn’t it? Is it that you think you’re some kind of emperor trying to save the republic, making decisions without consulting your advisors?” Her voice cracked as she spoke again, challenging him with her glare, “Or is it because you planned on burning everything I built in a day as if it meant nothing to you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raquel was oblivious to how close she had progressed to him during their argument until her face hovered just in front of his and she could feel the warmth of his breath that was somehow ragged. If she listened, she could almost hear his heart racing in his chest. Her own accelerated in response.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sergio swallowed thickly and shook his head, radiating a quiet, unexpected anguish that threw her even more off guard. Her determined front collapsed in the same moment, and her brow knit in confusion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, it’s because Rome is the city of eternal love.” Sergio spoke as if it were a statement of universal truth. He struggled to return to his previous stony exterior, even as he fought to remain expressionless; his eyes shone with guilt, almost </span>
  <em>
    <span>grief. </span>
  </em>
  <span>His next words were barely above a whisper, and he pushed his glasses up again. “That was why I reached out to you, after all. I don’t know what I expected, but I wanted us to be on the same side this time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The statement knocked the air from her lungs in a swift blow. A thick silence fell between them as the weight of his words hung in the air. At first, rendered speechless, her face spoke what she was unable to vocalize — a flash of indignation in widened eyes and a slack jaw that softened into a quiet heartache shining in her eyes, matching his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Sergio blurred the lines between himself and the Professor, Raquel too found herself at the center of a battle between two voices in her mind: the rational one that wanted to laugh at how poorly he showed that love after all his plan had done to hurt her, and the emotional one that melted at the explanation. Rationality challenged the part of her that had never fully been able to let go of their past. She was stuck in the middle, unsure which side to choose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only rationality had never truly won a battle, not when it came to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In an instant, the tangled mess of her emotions — rage, betrayal, confusion, grief, </span>
  <em>
    <span>love</span>
  </em>
  <span> — reignited the smoldering ashes of their past. An impulse of attraction rather than reason guided her forward, so close that her breath ghosted over his lips, so close that her nose grazed his, sending a jolt of electricity through them both. All it would take was a slight tilt of her head to join their lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You don’t want to throw your entire life away for that man.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Yet just as quickly as she had caved to desire, reality descended over her, effectively putting out the fire between them with a bucket of ice water as Alicia’s words taunted her again. Raquel groaned then let out a soft string of swears under her breath, staggering back a few steps and shaking her head at the ground. She braced herself on the empty chair in front of the screens as the floor started to spin beneath her feet. “No. No, this isn’t happening.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raquel thought she didn’t give any weight to Alicia’s unwelcome life advice, yet an echo of those words interrupted the same impulsiveness she’d been warned against. The current of desire between them was clear, and how intensely she had felt the shock crash through her in the second their noses touched unsettled her almost more than the sudden memory of Alicia’s words had. But last time, she had fallen so hard and so fast, and she’d ended up heartbroken. She needed to take a step back before diving headfirst into a connection she didn’t know she was capable of giving up a second time; because if his plan worked and cleared her name, their days were numbered once more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She also couldn’t let desire distract her from the anger and hurt it masked, which swelled in her chest again as past memories resurfaced on top of the damage he wrought that day. A touching name of a plan was no bandage for the wounds he inflicted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sergio had laced his hands together and was twisting his thumbs as Raquel finally glanced up from the ground. His head was tilted down as well, unable to look at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t—” She mumbled, chest heaving with shaky breaths. “I can’t- I can’t do this right now.” Raquel moved away from him, letting her eyes fall shut for a few moments. She turned to get further away, but she hadn’t made it far before she paused and turned around again. Willing strength into her voice that she certainly didn’t feel, she added, “You can’t blame me for all that’s gone wrong then in the same breath say you love me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had reopened the real, deep wounds he’d given her before and carved new ones on top, and it was going to take more than suggestions of love for her to heal. It was going to take time. Now, she just needed space.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The room wasn’t as large enough to give her as much physical space as she wanted, but eventually she spotted a set of bunk beds in a corner and set off in that direction. As she neared the beds, Marseille entered her path, carrying two steaming bowls and offering her one. Although it had been hours since she last ate, her stomach recoiled at the thought of eating, so she shook her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raquel found her duffel bag on top of the bottom bunk and pushed it aside. Collapsing onto the blankets, she let out a sigh and covered her face with her hands. After the past three days, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to sleep for several hours or cry until she had nothing left in her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, she lay on her back with her eyes closed, resisting the tears that threatened to spill.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The problem with isolation, though, was that it left her alone with her thoughts. If the police didn’t believe her story, she could be arrested and lose Paula, or she would have to escape with the Professor and his gang. And even so, might lose Paula, unless he could somehow incorporate her in his escape plan. Even if he </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> help Raquel escape the country with Paula, there would still be the decision of whether to go with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another voice in her head taunted her: maybe they would finally make it to Palawan.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>More gut-wrenching than most of the other possibilities, if only because it seemed the most realistic if she were to trust him, was that he would escape and the police would believe his ruse. She wouldn’t lose Paula, but she would never see him again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time, it was her own thoughts that came back to haunt her unexpectedly: </span>
  <em>
    <span>she couldn’t lose Sergio before she even got him back.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Raquel let out a loud groan, swiping the pillow from underneath her head and placing it over her face to muffle the noise. She had </span>
  <em>
    <span>just</span>
  </em>
  <span> come to terms with the fact that she couldn’t rush into whatever she felt for him, and yet here she was, already dreading life without him. She’d made it fine three years without him — what the hell had changed?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grumbling to herself, Raquel cast aside the pillow and pushed herself up into a sitting position, leaning forward to unzip the duffel bag. Still wearing the same suit she’d put on the day before, she had wanted to change into clean, more comfortable clothes. However, on top of her clothes and next to the bag she brought to work sat the two red paper cranes and original stack of postcards, just as Sergio promised, and she let out a resigned sigh. Raquel ignored the fresh clothes and grabbed the origami figures, then she leaned back onto the pillow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was hard to remember that the man who seemed to disregard her so easily now was the same that had written these messages.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She started to unfold one of the paper cranes, and then the other. If she had questioned the name </span>
  <em>
    <span>Plan Roma</span>
  </em>
  <span> for the plan that supposedly surrounded her involvement in the heist, the words on these pages left no doubts that the city of eternal love was an apt metaphor for how he felt about her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her thumb brushed along the red paper, drawn to a few lines in turn.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I know that it’s crazy to escape with someone you knew for five days - but I fell in love with you in those five days, and I will gladly live with a daughter, a mother, and a grandmother if it means you’re in my life again.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You should know that not a day passes where I don’t think of you. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It feels as though I have known you across several lifetimes.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The letters reminded her that her love had been reciprocated all along, that he </span>
  <em>
    <span>still</span>
  </em>
  <span> loved her, no matter the seas and time and laws that separated them. No matter how much he struggled to show it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But they also made the thought of letting him go all the more painful. Her heart felt lighter as she read the letters over and over again, but a painful ache also twisted low in her stomach that she was unable to shake. Love would mean little when he escaped from Spain an international fugitive and she returned to the life she had worked so hard to rebuild, after all. Especially if he left her with ruins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she read the messages over and over, three days of sleepless night caught up to her, and his comforting words lulled her into a doze. When her eyelids grew too heavy to keep open and she drifted off, she was still holding onto the red paper cranes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raquel dreamt of a world where they could run away to the island of Palawan without any of the implications of such a move in real life, without the same complications that kept them apart.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Stunned into silence, mind unwilling — or perhaps unable — to process the moment he had almost had with Raquel, Sergio didn’t notice Marseille approaching the command center. Reeling in Raquel’s wake, his chest heaved with unsteady breaths, and he let out a soft, startled gasp at the sound of two glass bowls being set on the table. Clearing his throat, he stared blankly at the bowls of ravioli then nodded his thanks. “Did you bring any to Lisboa?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marseille shook his head. “She didn’t want any.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nodded again and turned around to face the monitors, making a note to himself to strongly encourage her to eat something in the morning. He wouldn’t force her — not that anyone could force Raquel Murillo to do anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sergio had little appetite under the anxiety that churned in his stomach and little desire to try to eat. He pulled out his chair and slumped back into the seat, lifting the fork to stab one of the stuffed pasta absentmindedly as he settled down. The first bite tasted just as bland and unappealing as it had hours earlier when Marseille prepared the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The pasta was soon forgotten when he began to study the screens again. Fortunately, the bank hadn’t exploded in chaos since Raquel arrived. Even without police interference, the gang often found ways to create their own problems, but to his relief, nothing seemed amiss yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing apart from Palermo’s condition, of course. Sergio flipped through the different cameras inside the bank until one of the monitors displayed Palermo asleep on a bed in a repurposed office. Worry lines formed on his head as he studied Palermo’s abdomen, clicking a few times until the camera zoomed in on him. From this view, the area around his wound seemed to have swollen more since Sergio last checked in, and he swallowed the large lump that formed in his throat at the sight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were fortunate that the surgery to remove Palermo’s gallbladder had gone relatively smoothly. It was only after the team stitched him up that problems arose; the doctor in Pakistan noticed unusual swelling in the abdomen, and he insisted on another ultrasound image. When the image showed a few black stripes across Palermo’s liver, the diagnosis was swift: liver lacerations.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That alone wasn’t a death sentence, but the news terrified Sergio more than he let on to the team — and the increased swelling only further spiked his nerves. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Snatching up the radio, he paged the bank.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s up, Profe?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nairobi, have Paquita do another blood transfusion on Palermo.”  That had been the doctor’s orders as a first response to more swelling. “And have her see if his abdomen is firmer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A former nurse, he trusted Paquita to tend to Palermo while Nairobi focused on melting the gold, which couldn’t stop even with one member down — </span>
  <em>
    <span>especially </span>
  </em>
  <span>with one member down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Got it. Anything else?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How are things in the vault?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right on track, 10 tons melted.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A little ahead, even — Sergio sighed in relief.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bien. Keep me updated on Palermo.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A few minutes later, Paquita replaced the saline solution in the IV connected to Palermo with a bag of blood for the transfusion. She then moved to press down on his abdomen, and he could scarcely see a trace of a frown on her lips after having zoomed out on the scene before she entered the room. As he hastened to zoom in again, her concern became much clearer. Turning to search through the medical supplies on a table near Palermo’s bed, she pulled out a thermometer to take his temperature; when the results didn’t deepen her frown, Sergio allowed himself a bit of hope.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He watched the screen displaying the outside of the Bank of Spain once Paquita left the room, waiting for Nairobi’s message. The scene was almost eerily quiet given the truce; if it weren’t for the charred earth and ashes scattered across the ground, it could be like any other night in front of the bank. Instead, the ashes were black marks on his performance today, reminding him of how it all had spiraled far beyond his control.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Profe?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nairobi’s voice anchored Sergio to reality, and he reached for the radio again. “What did Paquita say?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“His abdomen was firmer, and she thinks it’s internal bleeding. He didn’t have a fever, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Although internal bleeding was cause for concern, no fever suggested it wasn’t out of hand yet. He released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bien. We just need to monitor him, check the swelling every two hours. The blood transfusion should help with the internal bleeding. Send Paquita to stay up there with him tonight.” He sighed softly. “Let me know if it gets worse.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Copy that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sergio released the radio from his tightened grip, and it crashed on the table in front of him as he lifted his hands to rub at his eyes again. Palermo was alive for now, but he was far from fine, and the usual road to recovery from such an injury required more time than they had at their disposal. First, the swelling would need to go down. Then, Palermo would have to be careful not to disturb the wound. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stealing the national reserve of the Bank of Spain and fleeing the country were just the sort of strenuous activities that could make his condition go downhill, and fast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As Palermo’s health teetered on the edge of the cliff, so did the fate of the heist. Each hour threatened to push it over, and if Palermo went down, they all went with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sergio’s jaw tightened, fists clenching, and the next thing he knew he was on his feet, pacing to try to work out the worst of his nerves. When his mind hadn’t quieted after a few minutes, he shifted his attention to finding his origami supplies, the only other way he knew to recenter himself. He spotted a flash of red after a few moments, but his breath caught in his throat upon realizing that it was not his own supplies; Raquel had found the duffel bag on her bunk, and she was holding the two paper cranes he sent her. Sergio started to turn away to let her read in privacy — now </span>
  <em>
    <span>desperate</span>
  </em>
  <span> to find his own paper to distract himself — but hesitated when he realized she had fallen asleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His resolve shattered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He approached the bed with careful, cautious footsteps. Leaning down, Sergio gently brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen over her eyes. Sleeping away her exhaustion, she looked so </span>
  <em>
    <span>peaceful, </span>
  </em>
  <span>so far removed from their current reality. Standing before her, he wanted nothing more than to forget that reality; he wanted to close his eyes and lie in the bed with her and pretend the heist didn’t exist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a deep inhale, Sergio instead tried to ground himself in the present. He reached to the top bunk and tugged off the blanket, draping it halfway over her sleeping figure. Then, careful not to disturb her, he plucked the paper cranes from her hands and set them at the top of her duffel bag. He moved to pull the blanket over her shoulders, and as he did, he stalled at the trace of a smile on her lips. It was impossible to tell whether it was a genuine response to his presence or if it was simply a twitch in her sleep, but her smile soothed him all the same. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>God, he’d missed her so much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you doing to me,” he murmured, stroking her cheek with gentle affection. When his touch was enough to make her stir a little in her sleep, he quietly backed away so as not to wake her up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sergio resumed his search for his origami supplies with his heart only half in the task. His mind too was lost elsewhere, still trying to fathom the effect Raquel had on him that he didn’t fully know how to put into words, but that had shaken him to his core. Eventually, he spotted the stash of red paper next to some blueprints of the bank, and he returned to the screens all the more determined to quiet his mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A brief debate whether to fold a paper crane or a boat did the job for a few moments — but then just as quickly as he silenced his racing thoughts, all he had suppressed since moving away from the bunk beds flooded back in a rush. As useful as the detailed steps were to occupy his hands and steady his nerves, it did little to quash the various worries that only seemed to get louder with time. All he saw in front of him was the hurt intensifying in her eyes, not each increasingly imprecise fold of the boat he made.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sergio fumbled through another fold as a surge of guilt weighed down his movements. Plan Roma was a success, as Raquel was safe and that was important. Despite that, he couldn’t shake the worry that she was right to fear the consequences of her disappearance. Whether Alicia believed the evidence he had planted mattered little as long as it held up in the eyes of the law, and he firmly believed it would. But what Raquel still wasn’t aware of — what validated her fears, and what he hadn’t acknowledged in the moment — were her ex-husband and ex-boss out for her blood. In the end, the air-tight evidence he insisted upon would fall flat to two men unwittingly aiding the narrative Alicia would try to paint of Raquel. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had been right, and all he did was cut her down and dismiss her concerns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Knowing the risks inherent in Raquel’s participation in the heist, Sergio had wanted to suppress his concern for her and operate solely on the Professor’s logic. He maintained confidence in his own plan and clung to his rational mindset, which cared about hard facts, not the subtleties of context she pointed out. Yet a subliminal part of him must have recognized the validity of Raquel’s points, because her pain and anger had penetrated his shield of the Professor and made Sergio slip farther and farther away from that perfect mental clarity he strove to reach. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was it possible that, in order to save the plan, he had to embrace his love for her rather than suppress all that he felt?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that made no </span>
  <em>
    <span>sense. </span>
  </em>
  <span>On principle, he believed emotion clouded judgment, and that love and heists were incompatible — one of his simplest rules that had been proven through Tokyo’s behavior time and time again. And after all, hadn’t falling for Raquel been his only uncalculated variable that derailed some aspects of the last plan?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That thought gave him pause — well, that and two imperfect folds in a row that only heightened his agitation — and Sergio set aside the half-finished boat, hands clasped and brow furrowed in thought. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ultimately, his first night spent with her had kept him away from the screens during the hostage escape that killed Oslo, and she was interrogating him in Toledo when Tokyo re-entered the Mint and Moscow was shot. Yet it was Raquel whose embrace offered escape when he was overwhelmed, her effect on him more calming than any tranquilizer for that one night. And it was Raquel who held off the police in the end, just long enough to allow them to escape.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was also Raquel whose presence unknowingly calmed him when he stood in front of the bunk beds just minutes earlier, not the methodical process of folding origami. It was Raquel who he had disregarded in a desperate attempt to hold onto reason. It was Raquel who he would </span>
  <em>
    <span>continue </span>
  </em>
  <span>to hurt if he approached her from the cold and calculating mindset that cared about facts, not feelings. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had to stop fighting his emotions — he had to let go of the comfortable shelter the Professor had become — not only to save the heist, but to save his most important personal relationship. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Fighting </span>
  </em>
  <span>his love was a losing battle, as Raquel’s presence shocked him out of his logical, calculating shell within minutes. But </span>
  <em>
    <span>embracing</span>
  </em>
  <span> his love, perhaps he could draw on that source of comfort she had always been. He wouldn’t push her away, and if his suspicions held true, her calming presence would clear his mind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Trying to categorize </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sergio </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>El Profesor </span>
  </em>
  <span>into two distinct identities had been a mistake, he realized. He could exist as both of them at once. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>needed </span>
  </em>
  <span>both of them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emotion coexisting with reason went against logic and against his cardinal rule. Yet as he reveled in the realization, it had never made more sense. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A feeling of calm, of </span>
  <em>
    <span>relief, </span>
  </em>
  <span>eased the unrelenting sense of panic in his heart. His lungs deflated, allowing him to breathe for what felt like the first moment since Raquel arrived. The past hours were a blur in his memory, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>she</span>
  </em>
  <span> was all that stood out against the background of the grim battle against himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>All at once, Sergio was tense and frowning again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In losing that battle, he had expressed his thoughts in ways that didn’t capture how he felt at all. It was true that a part of him regretted recruiting her — not because of the unintended consequences of her involvement in the heist, as he had suggested in the heat of the moment, but because all he could think about while she ranted was his guilt for disrupting her life once more. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sergio could lecture for hours on political theory but he was hopelessly clumsy when it came to expressing the depth of what he felt for Raquel, and that earlier attempt had crashed and burned. Eventually, though, she deserved a better explanation. She deserved to know that Plan Roma was designed to help her out of the corner that Prieto, Alberto, and the rest of the police were trying to force her into. She deserved to know that even if his fake kidnapping failed, he would do whatever it took to clear her name. That he didn’t intend to leave Spain without ensuring she was alright this time, and that he would go to any lengths to ensure she was. That he still loved her, and that he wished he had shown it better. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But such conversations would have to wait until the morning, and he resigned himself to finish folding the origami boat while he only half paid attention to the screens given the late hour. However, as Sergio reached for the half-finished figure and examined his progress, the obvious solution dawned on him. His previous messages did a much better job at conveying how he felt than Sergio himself ever could. And this time, he was there to ensure she received it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The half-folded red boat was forgotten as Sergio turned to the pile of red folding paper and fished out a pen between two keyboards on the command panel. Everything he wanted to say to her face spilled into ink on paper, far more eloquent than his earlier self. And when a phrase didn’t turn out right, he could crumple up that version of his note and start fresh, without causing her pain in the process of sorting out his jumbled thoughts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Several minutes and several scrapped drafts later, Sergio folded his thoughts into a crisp, clean paper crane, as if sorting out the currents of thought in his mind had rid it of the distractions that led to messy folds in his boat before. The finished product found a place on the table next to the screens, and once a clearer mind allowed him to finish folding the boat, it joined the other figure there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With the worst of his anxieties unleashed through repetitive folding motions, he leaned back in his chair and felt a wave of relief crest over him. It was a strange sensation given how stressed he had been, but it left him oddly giddy and smiling softly to himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was absolutely insane to think that his love could help rather than hurt the plan once Raquel read his next message, and yet as he turned his chair to cast another glance at her sleeping figure, he knew without a doubt it was true.</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comments are always much loved and appreciated 💕</p></blockquote></div></div>
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